Vanilla Porter Cupcakes with Vanilla Porter Salted Caramel Frosting

I will be the first to say I have never been a big fan of beer, any beer and my goodness I have tried.  We recently had dinner with some lovely friends and they introduced me to Vanilla Porter.  I was so surprised how well I liked it.  So this same dear friend had a birthday coming up and I thought what if I incorporate this deliciousness into a cupcake (cupcake on tap!!).  It definitely turned out better than I expected and I will definitely be making these again.  Indulge!

Chocolate Toffee Cupcake with Salted Caramel Frosting

Part II of Graduation Party:  Here is the chocolate cupcake I also made for the graduation party.  Indulge!

Mocha Salted Caramel cupcakes with an Irish surprise

We invited some friends over for dinner this weekend and one of them had a birthday coming up, so I thought what a great excuse to make cupcakes.  I was in the mood for chocolate and salted caramel, but also wanted to try a Bailey’s whipped frosting.  I decided to go with the salted caramel butter cream as the frosting and use the Bailey’s along with some of the salted caramel as a secret filling.  The Chocolate, caramel and Bailey’s cream is heavenly together.

Individual Chocolate Toffee Trifle

I have to admit this dish was created by accident after a little mishap in my kitchen (which happens quite a bit :) ).  I had invited my girlfriend over for dinner and because her birthday was the previous week I wanted to make her a special dessert.  Since I was going through a cupcake phase I wanted to incorporate a chocolate cupcake with English toffee bits and homemade salted caramel.  I had tried Ina Garten’s recipe “Beatty’s Chocolate Cake” and loved it.  It was so moist and had just the right amount of Chocolate goodness.  So I decided to try her recipe in cupcake form.  As always I was rushing to make sure everything was ready when my girlfriend arrived.  Cupcakes are in the oven and when I checked on them… let’s just say they were not pretty (I’m thinking I should have adjusted the amount of baking powder).   I was frantic, time was running out and I had a pan of spread out cupcakes.  Thank goodness I had recently viewed pictures of individual trifles that I thought were so adorable.  I had already made my salted caramel that had been cooling, so I threw in some heavy cream and English toffee bits in the food processor and created creamy toffee bliss.   I layered all the ingredients in a nice glass and voila my accident just turned into something delectable.  Indulge!