This year, I am posting recipes for the 12 Days of Christmas! From edible gifts such as Cranberry White Chocolate Crunch Biscuits to ways to reinvent your leftovers and also reviewing some products that you might want to have in your kitchens this Christmas.

To start the series off, I’m sharing my recipe for Dairy Milk Caramel Cupcakes. I’m not the biggest fan of Dairy Milk chocolate and so I decided to reinvent it into cupcakes inspired by the chocolate bar. A light and fluffy chocolate sponge with a hidden salted caramel centre is topped with a salted caramel cream, a piece of Dairy Milk Caramel and finished with a drizzle of more caramel.

These would be a fantastic treat for anyone who loves Dairy Milk Caramel and here are some other food bloggers’ recipes which use chocolate bars and would be perfect for any chocaholic:

Jane’s Patisserie’s Rolo Cupcakes

Jane’s Patisserie’s No-bake Caramel Rolo Cheesecake

Andrew in the Kitchen’s White Chocolate Mendiants

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For the salted caramel:

180g sugar

3 tbsp margarine

270ml double cream

1 tsp salt

For the chocolate cupcakes

175g margarine

200g sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

200g self raising flour

40g cocoa powder, sifted

1 tsp instant coffee granules

2 – 3 tbsp milk

For the topping

300ml double cream

2 bars of Dairy Milk Caramel, broken into pieces

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Prepare the salted caramel by putting the sugar in a pan over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Occasionally stir the sugar until it turns into caramel which is the colour of dark amber. Remove it from the heat, step back and carefully add in the margarine and double cream and whisk until the cream emulsifies and you have a caramel sauce. Be careful as it does spit and hiss. Leave on the heat for around 30 seconds until it is thick and glossy, add in the salt and pour into a bowl to cool down.

Preheat the oven to 170˚C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.

Put all of the ingredients for the cupcakes into a large mixing bowl and beat for 1 minute using an electric whisk. This is the all-in-one method and makes for a very simple and quick cake. Take a rubber spatula and scrape down the sides, folding the mixture on the side through a few times until it is even.

Use an ice cream scoop to divide the batter equally between the 12 paper cases, filling them no more than two-thirds full. Take a teaspoonful of the salted caramel and dollop it in the centre of the cupcake.

Bake the cupcakes for around 18 – 22 minutes until an inserted skewer comes out clean (some caramel may come out on the skewer). Leave the cakes to cool in the tin for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Whip the double cream until it forms soft peaks (it won’t hold the shape of the whisk but will be thick and pillowy). Add in half of the remaining salted caramel and fold it through and the cream should be thick and hold its shape. Place it into a piping bag fitted either with a star nozzle (up to you which size) or you can cut out your own nozzle with a pair of sharp scissors; I cut out a jagged edge with 5 points which gave a defined swirl.

Pipe a swirl of the salted caramel cream on top of the cupcakes and push a piece of Dairy Milk Caramel onto the cream. Spoon over some more of the leftover salted caramel to finish the cupcakes.

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Check out some other bloggers who are doing Blogmas or a 12 Days series like me:

Susan Writes Here – https://susanwriteshere.blogspot.co.uk

Jess and Josh Cook – https://jessandjoshcook.com

Food and Baker – http://www.foodandbaker.co.uk

Rose Beauty Files – https://therosebeautyfiles.com/2016/12/01/october-november-empties-blogmas-day-1/

Jess Cantoni – http://www.jesscantoni.com