Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes and a Surprise Addition

Our church has a ministry to cancer patients and every year, right around Valentine's Day, we host a banquet for those patients who are well enough to attend, along with their caregivers. It's a night of encouragement, fun, and, of course, food. This year, the colors are black and gold, so I wanted to create a special dessert that showcased those colors. This is what I came up with. 

Chocolate Salted Caramel cupcakes. This was a test subject I made ahead of time, hence the polka dots. For the banquet, they'll have plain black wrappers. I'll tell you more about these in a minute.

So, you may or may not remember that we lost our sweet Golden Retriever Dixie back in October, leaving us with just our little Maddie. But Friday, this little guy wandered up to our house, hungry and thirsty. 

Met Marvel. He looks bigger here than he really is. He only weighs ten pounds and the vet tells us he's about two years old, so he's done growing. 

We have no idea where he came from. He had no collar, no microchip. Then again, out here in the country,  people rarely choose their pets. Instead, pets usually choose their owners. Uncaring people have dogs and cats they don't want, so they often take them for a ride and dump them somewhere, which is what we suspect was the case with this little guy. So, it looks like he's here to stay.

Maddie isn't all that thrilled, however, she is coming around. She just wants everyone to know that she's still top dog. 

Now back to the cupcakes. Since I knew I was going to use the salted caramel, I wanted a nice rich chocolate cake and this one was perfect. Lots of chocolate flavor.

Then I topped it with my usually buttercream icing, which is 4 cups sifted confectioners sugar, 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, 1 tsp vanilla and 1-2 tablespoons milk to thin as needed.

Now for the salted caramel. 

I found  this recipe at Sally's Baking Addiction and you can get it here. It's not difficult to make, though it does take time, more than the ten minutes stated in the recipe. But the result was a beautiful and delicious salted caramel which was then drizzled over the cupcakes.

Simple and delicious with a pretty presentation. Exactly what I wanted.

The banquet isn't huge, but it's an event meant to take the attendees minds off of cancer and treatments, have some fun and mingle with others. It also serves to inspire hope and share the good news of Jesus Christ. And those two things are something the world could use a lot more of.

Three time Carol Award finalist Mindy Obenhaus is passionate about touching readers with Biblical truths in an entertaining, and sometimes adventurous, manner. She lives on a ranch in Texas with her husband, one sassy pup, countless cattle, deer and the occasional coyote, mountain lion or snake. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, cooking and watching copious amounts of the Hallmark Channel. Learn more a mindyobenhaus.com.