Turtle Cupcakes

I used a brown sugar cupcake recipe (which is my favorite) and a cream cheese frosting which without the powdered sugar makes an AMAZING caramel apple dip.

I completely forgot to take a bunch of pictures while making these, but there are a few. 

Brown Sugar Cake

(This recipe is slightly modified from the cupcake bakeshop)

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temperature

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

¾  teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
3. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds after each.
5. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
6. Measure out milk and vanilla together.
7. Add about a fourth of the flour to the butter/sugar mixture and beat to combine.
8. Add about one third the milk/vanilla mixture and beat until combined.
9. Repeat above, alternating flour and milk and ending with the flour mixture.
10.  Scoop into cupcake papers and bake at 350*F for 16 minutes

Caramel Frosting

8 oz. block of Cream Cheese

8 oz Dark Brown Sugar

6 oz. Powdered sugar

½ bag of heath “bit’s o brittle”

½ tsp. salt

1.       Cream the cream cheese and brown sugar together until you can no longer see the granulations of the sugar.

2.      Mix in the powdered sugar, heath bits, and salt

Pecan Turtles

1 cups sugar

½ cup light corn syrup

¼ cup water

1 cup cream, heated to a simmer

1/2 cup butter, cubed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup chopped pecans

Chocolate for dipping

1.       Mix sugar and corn syrup with the ¼ cup of water, mix to combine in a heavy bottom sauce pan. Bring to 300*F.

2.      Remove from heat and carefully add butter, simmering cream, vanilla, and salt.

3.      Once mixture has turned thick and creamy add in pecans.

4.      Wearing latex gloves lightly butter your hands take about ½ tsp roll into ball and dip in chocolate with a toothpick. Allow to cool on parchment paper or wax paper

Top each cupcake with frosting and one turtle