Possibly some of the best brownie cupcakes...ever!

It was a co-workers birthday last week and I wanted to make a real special cupcake for her. I knew that I wanted to do something that involved toffee and I finally came upon a recipe that I was instantly sold on.

I get e-mails from Hershey's about new recipes and decided to look through a couple of them. When I came across to "Chocolate Caramel Crumb" Cupcakes, would you think to just keep going? Absolutely not!

I am going to get straight to the point here, not only did I say this to myself but I heard it from a few more that "These are the best I/you have made so far". Are you ready for the recipe so you can get right on this!?

For the cupcakes:

• 1/2 cup Smucker's caramel ice cream topping
• 4 oz. cream cheese (half of 8-oz. package), softened
• 1 box (19.5 oz.) Pillsbury Chocolate Fudge Brownie Mix
• 1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
• 2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Mini Chips Semi-Sweet Chocolate
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons LAND O LAKES Butter, softened
• 1/2 cup Fisher Chef's Naturals Chopped Pecans
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup Crisco Pure Canola Oil
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 3 EGGLAND'S BEST eggs

I did not use the brands suggested, but I did use the Pillsbury brand brownie mix. I already felt like I was kind of cheating using the brownie box mix so I decided to go above and beyond and instead of using caramel ice cream topping, I made my own caramel! If you would like to see how I made the caramel, check back @ my caramel apple cupcake post! ;)

Also, I am not crazy for nuts, so I took out the chopped pecans and put in toffee bits! (There's the toffee I wanted!)

Now, for the directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Place paper baking cup in each of 18 regular-size muffin cups. In a small bowl, beat caramel topping and cream cheese with wire whisk until smooth; set aside. (I used my kitchen aid)
2. In a large bowl, stir together brownie mix, cocoa and chocolate chips. Remove 2/3 cup brownie mixture to another small bowl; stir in 1/4 cup brown sugar, butter and toffee until crumbly.
3. To remaining brownie mixture, add 1/3 cup brown sugar, oil, sour cream and eggs; stir 50 strokes with spoon. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Spoon about 1 tablespoon caramel mixture onto center of batter in each cup. Sprinkle crumb mixture evenly over tops. (Next time I make these, I am definately putting more than 1 tbsp of this mixture in the center, it was to die for!)
4.  Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted near edge comes out almost clean (center will be soft). Cool in pan 5 minutes; remove from pan to cooling rack. Cool 10 minutes.

Plop the caramel/cream cheese mixture right in the middle!

Crumb mixture on top.

All baked up! Don't they look amazing!

Now, as you see, the recipe above comes with no frosting..who wants a cupcake without frosting!?

I will say, the dollop of cream cheese mix in the middle does make these pretty good plain, but I knew that I still wanted frosting. I chose to put on top some cream cheese almond buttercream.

So gooey!

Ah, complete :)

I partied @

Sweets for a Saturday!

&

Frugal Friday!

&

Sweets for a Saturday!

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Crazy Sweet Tuesday!