Caramel Corn Cupcakes

In a future life, I will own a bakery. In this bakery, I will serve cupcakes and cookies and ice cream in the summer and cotton candy and delicious drinks. It will be in an old brick building and the floors will be wood. There will be mismatched old upholstered chairs (the old vintage kind with the super high backs) and the tables will be cute with tiny bouquets in the center.

Don't steal any of these ideas because my future self will haunt you.

In this bakery I will have to put a disclaimer saying that I don't actually come up with any original recipes, I just take old ones and make them wonderfully delicious.

I played baker yesterday afternoon:

PLUS

EQUALS

Seriously cute. I took a plain vanilla "Sprinkles" cupcake mix (from Williams-Sonoma) and frosted it with caramel frosting. The frosting was a little thin so I thickened it with powdered sugar. mmmmmm, anything thickened with powdered sugar is instantly delicious. Probably even liver and onions...

Okay so then I made caramel corn. Ya know that adorable blonde child named Kye (yes, I totally spelled his name wrong in the other post) who was with Maria at the wedding? Well his grandma Sandy has so many awesome recipes and this is one of them.

Caramel Corn

1/2 C light karo syrup

1 C light brown sugar

1 stick butter

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Put in the microwave for 4 minutes. Stir it up and mix in 12 C air-popped popcorn (we tried stove popped and we may have popped it wrong, but it wasn't as light and fluffy as Sandy's). Microwave for 40 seconds and stir it up. Microwave for another 40 seconds. Spread it all out on a layer of wax paper or foil. Let it cool just enough to break it up into delicious bite sized pieces.

I love Sandy.

Okay, so the caramel frosting recipe:

1 stick butter

1 lb light brown sugar

1 C heavy whipping cream

1/2 tsp baking soda

Stir the sugar and whipping cream together and heat to a rolling boil. Cook 1 minute and add the soda. Boil one more minute and add the butter. Don't stir it (I have no idea why it says this, but I followed the instructions) and let it cool completely (I let it cool for a few hours). I stirred it all together and then mixed it with a hand mixer. It was SUUUUPPPPPER runny so I added lots of powdered sugar to thicken it up. It was like a maple bar from Albertson's. Delish.