Salted Caramel Mocha Cupcakes

Have you ever attended a progressive dinner party? It’s where a bunch of friends get together and each one creates a dish to complete the meal. The fun thing about it is that each dish is eaten at the creators home. So you drive from house to house until you’ve completed a meal. Sounds like fun, right? Well today I’ve teamed up with 4 other bloggers to bring to you an online progressive dinner! I was in charge of creating the dessert for our meal and I made Salted Caramel Mocha Cupcakes.

Our progressive dinner features La Romanella and Ambiance products found at Smart & Final. Yesterday I went shopping for a bag of Ambiance coffee to create my mocha cupcakes. I couldn’t decide between the French Vanilla or Hazelnut Ambiance coffee, but decided to go with the French Vanilla this time.

Now before I get to the recipe I think you all know how much I love semi-homemade recipes, right? Well this is a recipe I had no idea if it would work. I searched google to see if anyone has made mocha cupcakes using a cake mix just so I knew it could be done, but of course every recipe I found was completely from scratch. So I had just trust my idea and try it out. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it worked and far exceeded my expectations. This mocha cupcake recipe is SO easy to make! I used a dark chocolate cake mix and made a salted caramel frosting to go with it.

Mocha Cupcake Recipe:

1 box Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Cake Mix

1 cup Ambiance coffee; strong brewed

3 eggs

1/3 cup oil

Preheat oven to 325 and fill cupcake pan with liners. Begin by brewing the coffee double strength, then allow it to cool before adding to the mix. Once the coffee has cooled combine all ingredients in a large bowl. The coffee is replacing the 1 cup of water the cake mix calls for. Fill liners 2/3 way full; bake for 20 minutes.

Salted Caramel Frosting Recipe:

Adapted from this recipe

3/4 cup unsalted butter; softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup caramel sauce

1 tsp sea salt

Beat softened butter until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Slowly add powdered sugar and mix until fully incorporated. Turn mixer off then add in caramel sauce and sea salt, mix for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Top with extra caramel sauce and sea salt if desired.

These mocha cupcakes with salted caramel frosting were a big hit! I will definitely be making them again soon.