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
- 1/4 cup unflavored whey protein powder, or powdered egg whites
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 recipe sugar-free caramel sauce
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp caramel or vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp liquid stevia extract
- 1/3 cup almond milk or cashew milk
Milk Chocolate Frosting:
- 3 ounces 1 bar Lily's Creamy Milk Chocolate, chopped
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 2 cups powdered Swerve Sweetener
- 4 to 6 tbsp heavy whipping cream, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp 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 tbsp 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
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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These cupcakes look terrific! The chocolate and caramel flavor combination is a winner, and I bet these smell great too.
These were delicious! I love the chocolate and caramel combo!
Maltitol is terrible for blood sugar. will pop you right out of ketosis… and makes super bad gas.
Dont’t know who are you are replying to… this recipe contains no Maltitol
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!
I was thinking that I could use your caramel sauce to make a “Milky Way” candy bar. Have you done that by chance?
No but I’ve made Twix! https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2014/06/homemade-sugar-free-twix-bars-low-carb.html
I’m going to make the twix tomorrow. If you do make a milky way, I’ll be watching 🙂
Thanks again!
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.
That makes me so happy to hear!
Is there any substitute for whey protein in your recipes? Thanks!
egg white protein powder is the next best thing.
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!
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!
Thank you!
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
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!
Hi there….I made these and they were delicious but the cupcakes sank after I took them out of the oven. Any suggestions?
It might be your brand of almond flour. What did you use?
If i wanted to make this into a cake, can you tell me what size pan I would use and baking directions?
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.
These look absolutely amazing. Have to give them a try!
These look incredibly delicious! I’m allergic to raw cream but oddly can tolerate it if it’s been cooked. Would this recipe work if I boiled the cream and then cooked it before making the frosting? Also, I don’t have whey powder or egg white replacement, would a couple of extra beaten egg whites have the same effect?
Yes, you could cook it. But let it cool before adding it to the frosting. The extra egg whites would be a huge problem because they’d add to much liquid to the mix. Just skip it, although your cupcakes may not rise as well.
Ok Carolyn I need your help! This recipe looks AMAZING but right now I’m on an elimination diet (slowly starting to reintroduce foods back) and can’t eat dairy/butter, chocolate (UGH!) or erythitol still for a short time period. I’d like to use this cupcake recipe as a base for my son’s birthday party coming up but I’m not sure if it would work if I eliminated the caramel sauce (which I know I know is the key ingredient but since I can’t eat some of the ingredients for a bit I can’t include!) or replaced it with something else? I’m being selfish because I LOVE tasting the batter when I bake and if I use the recipe as is, that means I can’t taste test the batter before cooking! 🙁 Anyway do you have any suggestions on replacing the caramel sauce or how I can get by without it? Or maybe you have another suggestion of a cake or cupcake base I could use that fits into these requirements? I am able to enjoy stevia, eggs and almonds again so that helps things somewhat! I’m stumped and was hoping you’d have some advice/guidance for me!
I don’t see how you could make this particular recipe without the caramel sauce. But I have plenty of cupcake recipes: https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/?s=cupcakes
Carolyn,
I just love your recipes! You are by far my favorite food blogger. Every recipe I’ve made turns out beautifully and taste great unlike other GF / SF recipes.
Please keep doing what you do!!
Thank you, Anne!
I totally agree, only been low carb for a month or so and down 8 pounds and I love your site this one and IBIH is the only ones I use, you are the baking mad scientist of low carb, thanks for what you do and I supported by purchasing one of your ebooks, keep doing what you do! You are amazing
These look fabulous! I was wondering if there is any way to decrease or eliminate the cool sensation that sometimes comes from using Swerve. It might not even be a big deal in this particular recipe, but I recently made some peanut butter cookies with Swerve and the cool taste was extremely noticeable and I’ve since been hesitant to bake with it, even though I love using it in other things.
See, Swerve is the one erythritol sweetener where I don’t get the cooling sensation. I think if you do taste it, you may find it present in the milk chocolate frosting. The only way you might offset that is to do a cream cheese frosting instead, with less sweetener and maybe a little stevia. Like this one: https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/2010/07/coconut-flour-cupcakes-with-chocolate-buttercream-low-carb-and-gluten-free.html