Cupcake Wars

Recently, I have become slightly obsessed with the television show "Cupcake Wars."  Mostly, I wanted to figure out how they get the icing all pretty.  The answer is: ginormous icing tips.  You need a really big open start tip, a really big closed star tip (this is what makes the great ribbony swirled tops), and if you want, a really big French open start tip (this is the one that has a lot of ridges and will cut off your finger if you are not paying attention). 

I am sharing my recipes from my latest experiment: Better Than Candy Bar Cupcakes.  They have chocolate, peanut butter, and caramel.  What more could you want?  Apparently, after I took a poll on Facebook about whether to put the peanut butter as filling or the caramel, just about anything else.  I got all kinds of [less-than] helpful suggestions about other combinations I could try.  I ended up doing it both ways.  My friend, Ron, claims he knew this would happen.

When you are putting these cupcakes together, you will want to make the caramel first, so that it has time to cool.  Then bake the cupcakes and cool them completely.  Finally, mix up your buttercream and prepare your decorating bags.  When I fill cupcakes, I use my peeler/corer (like you use to peel carrots or core apples) to make a little hole in the top of the cake for the filling.  You could also use a melon baller or a small spoon.  Just be careful not to go through the bottom of the cake.  If you need some practice with the icing, you can make circles on waxed paper or parchment paper, and then scrape the icing back into the bowl and re-beat it before you put it on the cakes.