Sweet low carb caramel cupcakes topped with creamy sugar-free milk chocolate frosting. You will never believe healthy can taste THIS good!
The other day, a blogger friend and I were discussing just how easy it is to accidentally “copy” another blogger’s idea. Or more to the point, to seem like you are copying someone else’s idea when you post a similar recipe a short time after they do. The reality is, however, that you never saw their recipe and you both quite independently struck upon the same idea and executed it around the same time. This is far more common than you’d think and much of it has to do with the cyclical nature of food blogging. We’re all cranking out the seasonally appropriate recipes, seeing wonderful fresh produce at our farmer’s markets and dreaming up delicious meals for our families and yours. But how is it that we can sometimes hit upon the exact same idea, when there are so many ideas to be had? I blame Pinterest.
Pinterest is like one great big mood board for food bloggers. It’s so visually stimulating and there is so much to be seen, a great deal of which is food. You would think that the inspiration is virtually limitless. And yet, and yet…chances are many of us are seeing the same things as other food bloggers and drawing on the same sources of inspiration. We food bloggers are a supportive lot and we pin each other’s work and share each other’s content all over the place. And since we all follow each other on social media, we are seeing the pins of our friends, some of which they might be using as inspiration too. So it’s hardly any wonder that once in a while, we come up with seemingly identical ideas. A fellow low carb food blogger and I might be looking at almost the exact same pin at the exact same time, thinking to ourselves “I bet I could make a low carb version of that!”.
Now, if we are any good at what we do, our ingredients and methods should differ quite a bit. We should be drawing on our own knowledge base of baking and cooking techniques, so that the actual outcome is quite different, even if the idea is the same. Especially in low carb or grain-free baking, because most of us have developed our own unique methods for achieving results that rival conventional recipes. I’ve developed so many of my own ways of doing things, it’s really very obvious to me when someone has copied my recipe directly, with maybe just a few minor adjustments. But more often than not, I see a recipe I think was MY original idea and think it’s a copy, only to discover that the ingredients and instructions are very different. We just happened to have the same original idea!
However, this recipe? If you see it anywhere else, chances are high that someone really did copy me. When this idea occurred to me, I searched high and low for similar ones. I searched Pinterest and I searched Google. I saw plenty of caramel cakes, which were vanilla cake layers with caramel frosting. I saw plenty of chocolate cakes with caramel frosting and a few chocolate cakes with milk chocolate frosting. But I could not find one example of a caramel flavoured cake with milk chocolate frosting. So I was out on my own, in pure experimentation land.
And oh, what a delicious experiment it turned out to be. I used a batch of my sugar-free caramel sauce in the cupcakes themselves and Lily’s Creamy Milk Chocolate in the frosting. I wanted to swim in that frosting, it was so good. And together with the caramel cupcakes, it was pure low carb heaven.
Caramel Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Frosting
Ingredients
Cupcakes:
- 2 cups almond flour
- ¼ cup unflavored whey protein powder or powdered egg whites
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 recipe sugar-free caramel sauce
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon caramel or vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon liquid stevia extract
- ⅓ cup almond milk or cashew milk
Milk Chocolate Frosting:
- 3 ounces 1 bar Lily's Creamy Milk Chocolate chopped
- ½ cup butter softened
- 2 cups powdered Swerve Sweetener
- 4 to 6 tablespoon heavy whipping cream room temperature
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 325F and line a 12 cavity muffin tin with paper liners (I recommend parchment for easy release).
- In a large bowl, whisk together almond flour, whey protein, baking powder, and salt.
- Add caramel sauce, eggs, caramel or vanilla extract and nut milk until well combined.
- Divide batter among prepared muffin tin and bake 28 to 30 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove and let cool completely in pan.
Frosting:
- In a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, melt chocolate until smooth.
- In a large bowl, beat butter with sweetener until combined (mixture will resemble crumbs). Add chocolate and beat until combined.
- Add 4 tablespoon whipping cream and vanilla extract and beat until smooth. If frosting is too thick, add additional whipping cream until a spreadable consistency is achieved.
- Spread or pipe onto cooled cupcakes.
Notes
Saturated fatty acids: 13.33g
Total fat: 28.80g
Calories from fat: 259
Cholesterol: 83mg
Carbohydrate: 9.62g
Total dietary fiber: 4.16g
Protein: 7.27g
Sodium: 314mg
Allie says
This is the best frosting in all the land!! Why is this not talked about more? Everybody make some of this frosting!!
Jennifer says
I don’t have liquid stevia extract, but I do have stevia glycerite. Do you think that would be okay? I have Swerve, allulose, and Bochasweet too.
Thanks!
Carolyn says
You can use that or you can add a bit more Swerve.
Krissy Allori says
Caramel and chocolate are a match made in heaven!
Ashley F says
This combo is amazing! I love that I can make my favorite treats low carb!
Chelsea says
These cupcakes are AMAZING!! We’re seriously obsessed. Thanks for sharing!
Valerie says
These cupcakes look terrific! The chocolate and caramel flavor combination is a winner, and I bet these smell great too.
Stephanie says
These were delicious! I love the chocolate and caramel combo!
Transplant says
Maltitol is terrible for blood sugar. will pop you right out of ketosis… and makes super bad gas.
Carolyn says
Dont’t know who are you are replying to… this recipe contains no Maltitol
Brenda Cash says
This is one of my favorite recipes. I like to make a double batch and freeze them for my morning break at work (I just finished one). I initially was intimidated by making the caramel sauce, but I finally overcame that and I’m soo glad I did. I will confess that I’ve never made the frosting, I make a half bath of ganache and use that. YUM YUM
If you’re looking for “something like the real thing cupcake” give this one a try!
Sherri says
I was thinking that I could use your caramel sauce to make a “Milky Way” candy bar. Have you done that by chance?
Carolyn says
No but I’ve made Twix! https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2014/06/homemade-sugar-free-twix-bars-low-carb.html
Sherri says
I’m going to make the twix tomorrow. If you do make a milky way, I’ll be watching 🙂
Thanks again!
Sherri says
I have searched and searched and baked and baked trying to find a cupcake and frosting that I was totally satisfied with since going keto. I don’t like any of the “buttercream” frostings. I purchased Pillsbury’s sugar free frosting but couldn’t handle the malititol. Your recipe has ended my search and left me VERY SATISFIED! Thanks a million!! I purchase most all my products from Amazon and will always come back and use your affiliate links as my way to say thanks.
Carolyn says
That makes me so happy to hear!
annette says
Is there any substitute for whey protein in your recipes? Thanks!
Carolyn says
egg white protein powder is the next best thing.
Carolyn says
What are the ingredients in Swerve? I have powdered erythritol but don’t know the equivalent to Swerve.
And is the cream being used as “milk” would be to thin the icing? I would like to use almond milk instead, but would that work?
Do you think egg white protein powder would work as the whey powder would? We are dairy free except for butter, so I’m trying to see how I can tweak out the dairy items.
What almond flour do you find to work best?
My daughter turns sweet 16 this week and asked for caramel and chocolate cake. I had no recipe, and then yours came across my feed! So excited to try this!
Carolyn says
Swerve contains erythritol and oligosaccharides, a sweet tasting prebiotic fiber. You should be able to just use your powdered erythritol. I think almond milk would work but you will probably need less of it. Egg white protein is fine!
Carolyn says
Thank you!
Carolyn says
I love Bob’s Red Mill Super Fine almond flour. Make sure you get that one, and not the “almond meal/flour” http://amzn.to/2efRRHq
Kim | Low Carb Maven says
This sounds really delicious. About 20 years ago I made the best banana bread by adding caramel sauce to the recipe. It was my mothers favorite! I can only imagine how wonderful these original caramel flavored cupcakes are especially with that milk chocolate frosting. Super great flavor combo! Thank you!
Angelina says
Hi there….I made these and they were delicious but the cupcakes sank after I took them out of the oven. Any suggestions?
Carolyn says
It might be your brand of almond flour. What did you use?
maggie says
If i wanted to make this into a cake, can you tell me what size pan I would use and baking directions?
Carolyn says
You could do an 8×8 pan. I don’t know the baking time but start with 25 minutes and keep checking every 5 or so minutes after that.
Kate says
These look absolutely amazing. Have to give them a try!