Salted Caramel Poked Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

One of my favorite parts about fall is the return of two of my very favorite coffee drinks: salted caramel lattes and pumpkin spice lattes. Salted caramel has become all the rage these days, and for good reason. It's a perfectly sweet and salty combo that I love in my coffee and desserts alike. In trying to decide what on earth to concoct for a foodie friend who is an incredibly accomplished baker, cook, cookbook author, food stylist, etc. herself (intimidating, right?!), I landed on combining my love for two great fall flavors to create a lovely fall dessert that is absolutely to die for. Not only are these delightfully spiced cupcakes balanced with a tasty salted caramel buttercream on top, they're drenched from the insides with salty caramel goodness. So good, they deserve a spot right next to (or maybe even in place of?) the traditional pumpkin pie at the Thanksgiving table. Give em a whirl!

Salted Caramel Poked Cupcakes

Makes 1 dozen standard cupcakes

Homemade Salted Caramel

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. salted butter
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt

Directions:

Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add brown sugar, heavy whipping cream and salt, stirring constantly. Allow mixture to boil for 1 minute and remove from heat. Cool completely.

Note: Reserve half of caramel for pouring into pokes and drizzling over the top of the cupcakes. I re-heated that portion for about 10 seconds in the microwave just to make it a little easier to work with. The remaining cool caramel was mixed into the frosting (see recipe below).

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1 c. flour
• 1/2 (3.4 oz) pkg. instant butterscotch pudding mix
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tbsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 c. (1 stick) salted sweet cream butter, room temperature
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 8 oz. pumpkin puree
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease muffin tin or prepare with paper liners.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, pudding mix, soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing in vanilla and pumpkin with last egg. Stir in flour mixture, mixing just until incorporated.

Pour batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake 20-22 minutes or until tops are golden and spring back when lightly pressed. Cool in pan 10 minutes and transfer to rack to cool completely before filling and frosting.

To fill cupcakes, poke three 1-inch deep holes into each cupcake and spoon cooled salted caramel on top, allowing it to seep into cupcakes. 

Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. butter, room temperature
• 4-6 c. powdered sugar
• remaining salted caramel (from recipe above)

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and salted caramel. Add powdered sugar slowly to desired thickness. Spread or pipe frosting on cupcakes and drizzle with reserved salted caramel. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt if desired.

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Slow Cooker Beef Stew

There is something absolutely lovely about a weekend with nowhere to go and nothing in particular to do. After a solid two months of booked weekends and traveling, we finally enjoyed a weekend at home with some great fall weather, a bonfire with friends, disc golfing, a bean bag tourney with family and football watching. (Disclaimer: the football watching was actually rather disappointing...for Vikings fans, anyway.)

Are slow cookers cheating? I vote no. I love that you can get all the prep out of the way in the morning and enjoy dinner later in the day without much fuss. I chopped up all my veggies (except for the potatoes) the night before and only had to spend about 10 minutes putting everything together in the in the morning. Errands ran and a good game of disc golf later, we came to home to the aroma of homemade stew simmering away. A special note about my disc golfing skills: it's amazing that I'm capable of wielding a knife without losing a finger...or an arm...you'd never guess from my lack of coordination on the disc golf course. Anyway, nothing ground-breaking or Earth-shattering here, just a good, down-home beef stew that makes a return to my recipe repertoire every fall and winter.

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Serves 8

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. beef stew meat, cut into 1" cubes
• 1/4 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• 1 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 red potatoes, diced
• 4 carrots, peeled and sliced
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 6 c. beef broth
• 3 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp. corn starch

Directions:

Place meat in slow cooker. In a small bowl, mix flour, salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika and ground cloves. Pour flour mixture over meat and stir to coat. Add veggies to slow cooker. Pour beef broth and Worcestershire sauce over veggies and meat and stir. Simmer covered on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-6 hours. During the last hour of simmering, dissolve corn starch in cold water to form a paste and stir into stew. Serve with crusty bread if desired. Enjoy!

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