Caramel-filled Black and White Cupcakes

Easter was recently, and that means lots of adorable egg shaped candies. I saw a few pictures on foodgawker of Cadbury creme egg cupcakes, so I decided to make my own version. Unfortunately I only have a small-medium muffin tin so I couldn't really fit an entire Cadbury egg AND cupcake batter. AND it turns out those eggs are mad expensive. SO I ended up getting mini caramel filled eggs. I couldn't decide if I wanted vanilla or chocolate cupcakes, so I went with both :D I modified the recipes based on what ingredients I had available, and I completely replaced all purpose flour with white whole wheat flour, which made the batter really thick and almost cookie- or muffin-like, as opposed to cake-like. Anyway, the chocolate cupcake recipe is modified from here, and the vanilla cupcake recipe from here.

yield: ~40 small-medium sized cupcakes
INGREDIENTS

40 caramel egg candies

For the chocolate batter

• 3/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sour cream

For the vanilla batter

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk

For the frosting

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
  
• 3/4lb. powdered sugar
  
• 1/2 c. sour cream
• 4 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
  
• assorted food coloring, if desired
  

1. Preheat oven 350degrees. Butter and flour your muffin tin(s).
2. Make the chocolate cupcake batter. In a medium bowl, sift together cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add the flour mixture alternating with sour cream, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
3. Make the vanilla batter. Put butter in mixer and beat at medium speed until somewhat smooth. Pour in sugar and beat well. Add 2 eggs. Mix well. Add: vanilla, baking powder, salt, flour, and milk. Beat until smooth.
4. Place a heaping teaspoon of chocolate batter into the bottom of each cupcake. Gently place an unwrapped candy on top of the batter. Then scoop a heaping teaspoon of vanilla batter onto of each candy. Because the whole wheat flour-to-baking powder ratio is pretty high, it's ok to fill these muffin cups up all the way.
5. Bake the cupcakes for ~15 min until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick (inserted as close to the middle as possible without piercing the caramel) comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting (but not necessarily before trying one :D).

6. For the frosting, beat together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the sour cream and continue beating while sifting the powdered sugar into the mixture. Add a few drops of food coloring as desired. Frost the cupcakes and enjoy! Make sure you serve the cupcakes at room temperature otherwise the caramel will be too hard and it'll interfere with the consistency.