Samoas Cupcakes

A year or so ago, I found the recipe for samoas and samoas bars on Baking Bites and subsequently added them to the already full list of bookmarked recipes. I had heard of girl scout cookies, but never new what the actual flavours were. Samoas seemed like the perfect cookie for me as I love love love coconut (and chocolate!). So finally, me an a friend decided to make the bar version. As we don't really have soft caramels here, making them was a bit more of  trek than the original recipe. I've since lost the caramel recipe :( . But anyway, the bars were really good...

So this year, the same friend requested I make her birthday cake. After seeing a few recipes for samoas cupcakes online, I thought they would be perfect. I didn't follow any specific recipe, just different ones for the different components in the recipe.

They are vanilla cupcakes filled and thinly covered with chocolate buttercream frosting, then topped with coconut caramel and drizzled with semi-sweet chocolate.

Samoas Cupcakes (makes 15)

Cake


2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to Sift first 3 ingredients together. Cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add milk and flour alternately, starting with milk, adding  in three additions. Spoon batter into lined muffin tin and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cupcakes are golden coloured and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove cupcakes from pan and leave to cool on a rack.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting


2 tbsp soft butter
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 oz  bittersweet chocolate, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
powdered sugar
milk
1/2 tsp oil

Cream the butter, cocoa, chocolate and vanilla. Add 1 tbsp of milk and about 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Keep adding powdered sugar and a little milk (and more cocoa if you want), until it reaches the desired sweetness and texture. Stir in the oil (added to keep the frosting soft and shiny).

Coconut Caramel
slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen - Coconut Milk Fudge


1 cup light sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tbsp light corn syrup
2 tbsp salted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup lightly toasted desiccated coconut (I used sweetened)
1/4 cup milk

Spread the desiccated coconut out on a baking sheet and place in the oven at 140 degrees C for 5 minutes, stirring often, until the edges are beige.
Put the first four ingredients in a medium saucepan over a medium heat. Let the mixture come to the boil while stirring constantly. Lower the temperature and continue to stir and cook until the mixture becomes a golden-beige colour, but is still fluid (took me about 15 minutes). Stir in the rest of the ingredients. Leave mixture in pot as it may need to be re-heated later.

Assembly
Using a thin, small knife, carefully cut a narrow inverted cone out of the center of the top of the cupcake, remove cone of cake and discard eat ;). Fill a piping bag with buttercream frosting and fill each cupcake, leaving a dollop of frosting on top. Spread the dollop of frosting thinly to coat the top of the cupcake. Taking rounded tablespoons of caramel (which may have to be reheated), spread it generously ontop of each cupcake. Once all the cupcakes are covered with caramel, you can use your hands to gently pat the edges of the caramel into a more uniform shape. Melt about 2 oz of semisweet chocolate with a little vegetable oil and drizzle, using a fork, onto all the cupcakes. Leave to harden.


Any left over caramel can be formed into balls and rolled in vermicelli etc (look at the original source at Smitten Kitchen  to see what I mean)