Caramel cupcakes dipped in gooey caramel cream and topped with tangy green apple frosting~ yum! Add a caramel MISfortune cookie on top to celebrate Halloween with some laughs.
INGREDIENTS:
- One box of Duncan Hines Caramel cake mix (plus water, oil and eggs to make according to box)
- One bag (14 oz) Kraft Caramels
- 1/2c. sweetened condensed milk
- 1/4c. butter or margarine
- 1 stick (4oz) salted butter
- 1 stick (4 oz) unsalted butter
- 2 c. powdered sugar
- 2 t. clear vanilla flavoring
- 1 packet of Crystal Light drink mix- Appletini flavor
DIRECTIONS:
- Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
- Make cake mix according to box and divide into 24 cupcake liners in a cupcake tin.
- Bake according to box. Remove from oven and cool completely.
- In a small saucepan, combine 16 unwrapped Caramels, 1/2c. sweetened condensed milk and 1/4 c. butter.
- Melt (stirring constantly) until creamy and smooth.
- Pour warm caramel into a small bowl. Dip tops of cooled cupcakes into caramel to coat the top. Stir caramel occasionally to keep it smooth. (I had to spoon the remaining caramel onto the last few cucpcakes instead of dipping them)
- Allow caramel to cool completely.
- Make frosting by adding butters, powdered sugar, vanilla and Crystal Light drink mix together in a mixing bowl. Beat together on low until combined and then beat on high until light and fluffy. **note: the apple flavor in the drink mix is strong and tart– I LOVED it, but you might want to add it a little at a time and taste as you go to decide how strong a flavor you want.**
- Pipe frosting over the caramel on each cupcake and enjoy!!!
To add fun little misfortune cookies on the top for Halloween party:
- Unwrap the rest of your Kraft Caramels and place about 15 in a large ziplock bag. Microwave for about 15 seconds to soften them, remove them from the bag and knead them into a ball.
- Place the ball back in the bag and using a rolling pin, roll the caramel out flat and thin.
- Carefully remove the flattened caramel from the bag and use a round cookie or fondant cutter
to cut circles out of the caramel.
- Slide a funny misfortune in the center and fold into a fortune cookie shape (fold lightly in half and then pull the corners back and together).
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Need ideas for MISfortunes? Print a free PDF of my favorites here
- Place each MISfortune cookie on a cupcake and enjoy!
To give credit where it is due: this GENIUS idea of using Kraft Caramels to make fortune cookies came from a wonderful book called What’s New, Cupcake?
My thoughts: These are such a unique cupcake– the tart green apple frosting is the perfect balance to the sweet caramel and the misfortune cookies just make everyone laugh. The frosting is a tart and strong green apple flavor- a little like Jolly Rancher candies. You can add less drink mix to tone it down if you’d like- just add a little at a time and taste as you go. I loved it exactly the way it turned out!
I want to apologize ahead of time to my international fans. I’m pretty sure you are going to have a hard time finding caramel cake mix and almost positive you won’t be able to get your hands on the Appletini drink mix. A homemade caramel cake would work, and any powdered drink mix with a green apple flavor..? As I said- my apologies!!!
I hope you really enjoy surprising people with these unique cupcakes!! ~r
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EASYBAKED 
These look delicious – and I LOVE the misfortune cookies!
Thank you!!
These cupcakes look delicious!
If you like green apple, I think you will love the frosting!!
Would this particular frosting hold fondant on a cake? I’m looking for an apple flavored icing and adding apple extract to buttercream didn’t work. The buttercream was too over powering.
I’m honestly not sure? It’s a pretty firm frosting, but I don’t have a lot of experience with using fondant on cakes, so I’m not sure…?
Thank you. I can’t wait to try them.
You’re welcome!!! You’ll have to let us know how they turn out for you!!
That caramel sounds amazing, I would probably just stand there and eat it with a spoon instead of frosting 🙂
haha! Something like that *might* have happened with the leftovers….possibly…. 😉
I just LOVE this. Whether I can find these exact ingredients or not the idea of dipping the cupcakes in the icing (why had I never thought of that??) and using the caramel to make cookies…all awesome ideas!
Thank you Aimee!!!! 🙂
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What a funny idea, I love it .Great cupcakes,I’ve featured this recipes on my blog! I hope you don’t mind! If you don’t agree with that please contact me and I will remove it. All the best.
Oh no- thanks so much for sharing!!! Glad you enjoy the recipe!
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I found this recipe thanks to Instagram… The cupcakes look amazing! I really can’t wait to try it!!
Thanks! Glad you found us:0)
I can’t wait to make these next week! I can’t find the Crystal light mix, all I could find is regular Apple…do you think I could add a little green gel coloring to at least get the green look? What store did you find that mix at? Thanks! 😃
I’m sure the regular apple mix will be fine- and yes, I’d use a little food coloring. I got the mix at Meijer, but I just saw it in WalMart a couple of months ago.
These were fabulous right after I finished making them but within 24 hours, the caramel became very thin and runny and seemed to get absorbed by the cake; and it caused the apple frosting dollops to slide to the edge of the cupcakes.I’m 100% sure I made the caramel correctly, so I’m not sure what caused this. Anyone else have this problem?
PS couldn’t find the crystal light apple flavor, so used a little of apple flavor Kool Aid mix instead and that worked great for the apple frosting 🙂
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