Vegan Salted Caramel Muffins

Supper fluffy, extremely moist and ridiculously tasty! Try this recipe if you want to impress everyone with your vegan baking skills! ​❤️

Last week at work we had another bake off competition, so I thought it's a perfect occasion for me to practise my vegan baking skills and invent something new. Unlike other recipes on my website, this one is quite complicated - so read further if you are looking for a little baking challenge :) 

Recipe below makes about 18 large muffins (I know... weird number, but I have two muffin trays - one of 6 and one of 12, that's why I made 18) so it's enough for all your friends to try ​😇

You will need:

❤️  350ml  of chocolate soy milk
❤️  200g of white sugar
❤️  150ml of olive oil
❤️  2 tbsp of lemon juice
❤️  200g of self-raising flour
❤️  75g of cocoa powder
❤️  2 tsp of baking soda
❤️  1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
❤️  1/2 tsp of table salt
❤️  3 tbsp of sea salt flakes
❤️  50g of dairy free margarine / butter (melted)
❤️  1 tub of vegan buttercream or vanilla frosting

For Salted Caramel:
​
❤️  300g of white sugar
❤️  250ml of coconut cream
❤️  50g of dairy free margarine / butter
❤️  125ml of water
❤️  2 tbs of maple syrup

The recipe

First of all, preheat oven to 175C and put cupcake liners into baking tray(s).

Take a large bowl and put dry ingredients in: cocoa powder, flour, sugar and salt. Add baking soda and pour it over with lemon juice, then mix everything together. In a separate bowl (or a shaker) combine chocolate soy mil, olive oil, vanilla extract and melted vegan butter. Slowly pour the mixture into dry ingredients bowl constantly whisking.

When the mixture is well combine and free of lumps, you can start filling your muffin liners. You should aim to fill about 3/4 of each liner for the best results. Lastly put your muffin tray(s) into the oven for about 40 minutes and start making salted caramel sauce. Caramel sauce is a slow process so you might want to pour yourself a glass of wine or put a TV show in a background 😇  

In a sauce pan boil water, sugar and syrup. When you start seeing bubbles - reduce the heat to a minimum and leave for good 15 minutes. You don't need to stir or mix it, just make sure you don't over cook the sauce. When the mixture turns golden brown take the pan from the heat and add vegan butter and coconut cream. Whisk everything well and set aside.

Salted caramel sauce takes about 20 minutes to make, so you should still have time before muffins are done. While waiting you can prepare salted caramel frosting 😇  I think I mentioned this before, but I found an amazing vegan frosting in... Poundland! It is not advertised as vegan of course, but if you read the label there is no dairy or eggs, so it's perfect. When you find this frosting all you need to do is to add 4 table spoons of cocoa powder and pour about 4 spoons of salted caramel sauce that you made earlier, combine well and put into a fridge.

Once muffins are ready, line them up and scoop out a 1 cm hole in the centre of each. Don't throw away scooped middle, as you are going to use it for crumbles. Leave muffins for at least one hour to cool down and only then start decorating.

Pour 1 table spoon of caramel sauce into each hole and decorate with frosting. Finally sprinkle some cocoa powder, sea salt flakes and crumbles on top of each muffin. And here you go - salted caramel muffins are ready!

I hope that you and your friends are going to love this recipe! This is definitely my favourite so far 😇 ​

Have a lovely Sunday and see you soon!

With love,
Viktorija ❤️