twix cupcakes

Halloween sparks fear in many of us.
When I was younger, I used to be extremely afraid of any costume that involved a mask. 
I still don’t particularly love those skeleton costumes with the red food coloring “blood” running through them. Ick.  
The number one fear in my family on Halloween has always been running out of candy.
Even though our house only gets around twenty trick-or-treaters, my dad always buys over ten bags of candy (most of which are Reeses, his favorite, because he knows we’ll have leftovers… I know your tricks daddy!).
This leads me to the topic of the day: leftover Halloween candy. What do you do with it all?  Sure you could eat it all on November 1st, but that’s no fun.  I had to bake mine into something.  Sadly, unlike my dad, I can’t stand Reeses, let alone bake with them; so, I’m going to let him take care of those while I bake the rest into Halloween candy concoctions.
These Twix cupcakes have a shortbread Sandie cookie baked into the bottom, just like the candy.  They are filled with homemade soft caramels, frosted with caramel buttercream frosting, and garnished with a chocolate drizzle and half of a Twix bar.
From stale Halloween candy to crazy decadent cupcake madness.
Talk about an upgrade!

What do you do with leftover Halloween candy?
With love,
Erica

Ingredients:

24 chocolate cupcakes (use a box mix or your favorite recipe)
24 soft caramel candies
1 box Simply Shortbread Sandies (or any round shortbread cookies)
1 recipe caramel buttercream frosting (recipe follows)
12 miniature Twix bars
1/2 cup chocolate chips.

Place one shortbread cookie in the bottom of each cupcake wrapper.  Pour cupcake batter over cookie and prepare as usual. Let your cupcakes cool.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. 
Core each cupcake with either a melon baller or a cupcake corer. Place a soft caramel candy in the center of each cupcake. Place the cupcakes in the oven for 5 minutes or until the soft caramel has melted.  Take the cupcakes out of the oven and let them cool completely.
Prepare the caramel buttercream frosting.
Once the cupcakes are completely cool, frost with buttercream frosting.
Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave and drizzle the cupcakes with chocolate.
Cut each Twix bar in half and place on top of each cupcake.

Caramel Buttercream Frosting.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1/3 cup butter
• 2/3 cup caramel ice cream topping
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 4 cups (approx. 1 lb) confectioner’s sugar sifted