The Story:
I went to a K-8 school when I was growing up and when I was in kindergarten, we would go home early everyday. So me and the other 12 kindergarteners would take a short school bus home. And every Tuesday, our jolly bus driver would give us each a PayDay as we got off at our stop.
Salted Caramel PayDay Cupcakes
Servings 24 Cupcakes
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 Box White Cake Mix
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1 whole egg
- 2 egg whites
- 3/4 cup buttermilk
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Caramel Frosting:
- 1/2 cup butter softened
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2-3 cups powdered sugar
- Peanuts to decorate I used salted peanuts
Instructions
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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.
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2. Gently combine oil. eggs, egg whites, buttermilk, sour cream and vanilla extract.
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3. Sift in cake mix and stir until combined,
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4. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 18-22 minutes, or until and inserted knife comes out clean.
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5. Caramel Frosting: Melt butter in a small saucepan, add brown sugar and heavy cream. Stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla extract and let cool. Beat in powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency. (If you want, save a little caramel to drizzle over the top of your cupcakes.)
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6. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and top with peanuts and caramel.
I used to LOVE paydays. Not that I don’t anymore but I am able to resist them more these days. My self control would cave in front of these though.
I cannot wait to try these. However, I’m still trying to find a good reason to try the 100 Grand and the Butterfinger also. Love, love, love this series you are doing. Thank you.
the Butterfinger blizzard are amazing. Seriously if you make them your family will never stop talking about them. I bring them to all my family gatherings now and people go NUTS!
what tip did you use?:)
I used a Wilton 2D tip for these, good luck!
These looks AH MAZING. Love PayDay and this is a great dressed up recipe using a boxed cake mix. Can’t wait to try it!
Pay day’s are my absolute favorite candy bars! And to put it in a cupcake?! well, that’s genius!
Have the cupcakes in the oven now, going to start on the frosting. But when do you add the heavy cream to the frosting??
Whoops! Fixed that in the recipe. Add it with the brown sugar!
Thanks for the quick reply! They turned out great! Can’t wait to take them to work tomorrow!
I made these last weekend and everyone LOVED them!
I, however was unable to get the buttercream thick enough for piping.. I had to add so much powdered sugar to get it to an ok consistency, but not thick enough to pipe well.. What did I do wrong??
Hm, perhaps it didn’t cook long enough on the stove. The consistency is different than a normal buttercream, and I had to let me caramel cool first. I am sorry it wasn’t right to pipe, but hopefully they were still tastey!
Yea, maybe I should have let the caramel cook more. Your piping looks so nice by the way.
And yes, they were Delicious!!
I had the same issue. Instead i made a traditional buttercream icing and added a bit of the home made caramel. I have made it several time and it is perfect, not overly sweet or caramely. This cupcake is a hit everyone loves something sweet and salty. I even turned it into a cake for my mom on mother’s day.
AMAZING! These look so pretty and delicious! In love!
Can I convert this recipe and your others to a 9×13 cake pan?
Yes! That should work perfectly!
Help! I want to make this so bad because Payday bars are my fav but I can have buttermilk. Any suggestions for a substitute?
Thanks!
“can’t” sorry.
Regular milk will work fine, good luck!
I rode a short bus too! I grew up in a very rural area, several miles down basically a one lane road and the full size bus couldn’t get back there. So we rode a strange little bus with four seats, two on one side against the wall and two on the other. Our bus driver gave us a candy bar on Fridays if we were good during the week. And that was a big deal, a whole candy bar that I didn’t have to share with my brother since he got one too. This bus was also where I learned to drive a stick shift. I’m sure it would be a criminal offense now but the bus driver used to let me sit in the floor next to her and shift gears. Good times growing up in the country.
Paydays are my dad’s favorite! If we went somewhere together he would always buy one and we would share it. I just moved my parents into a retirement complex and cleaned out their house. I’ll make these cupcakes as a special treat for Daddy!! Thanks.
I made these this week for a women’s meeting at church and they were delicious, everyone raved about them! However, I think it should be noted that if you want to pile up the frosting in a photo worthy way (like shown in this blog post) then the frosting recipe needs to be doubled. I went by what was written and realized part way through that it wasn’t going to be nearly enough and had to scurry to make another batch to finish them off in time. But…they were certainly deliciously wonderful!
Great recipe!! I added an extra step and made additional caramel (about 1/2 the recipe) and tossed some peanuts and salt in it to coat the peanuts a bit and it worked out great!! Originally the icing was too thick to pipe, so I added small amounts of whipping cream until it was perfect 🙂 Everyone LOVED them!
My mom’s favorite candy bar is a PayDay so I decided to make her the cupcake kind. They turned out great! The cake was so moist and the frosting had a good consistency. The caramel made the frosting nice and solid. I used a Ziplock bag to pipe out the frosting and it worked great! Great recipe!
Oh my gosh I love love pay day’s I think gonna try some these cupcake Dr. told me be careful what eat,,lol shhhh I try a little Thank’s so much showing all cup cakes,…