The Chewbacca

  Well, at long last, a start to my cupcake series on flavors inspired by Star Wars. My first flavor choice was the Chewbacca. There was (and still is) much debate over what "The Chewbacca" should look and taste like. There is a very good likelihood that this flavor will evolve over time. However, for now, this is where "The Chewbacca" stands. I knew I wanted to incorporate peanut butter, caramel and chocolate into this cupcake. The final cupcake ended up being a basic vegan chocolate cupcake, a most assuredly NOT vegan peanut butter buttercream, chopped toasted almonds and the absolute best part, a salted caramel drizzle. I chose almonds out of sheer laziness. I had them in the house. My initial idea was to use peanuts, but it was a fortuitous substitution. After all, almonds and salted caramel is probably one of the best flavor combinations ever! Especially on top of vanilla ice cream, but I digress.
  As I have mentioned in a previous post, I like to try to make everything from scratch whenever possible. So, true to my word, the salted caramel sauce was also homemade. I came across a frequently used recipe on line that requires exactly four ingredients: sugar, cream, butter and salt. The recipe also turned out to be incredibly easy so I was very pleased overall. Unfortunately for me, the salted caramel recipe made about two cups worth, so I have plenty of excess sitting in my fridge, tempting me to eat it on ice cream. I am normally not too tempted by ice cream in the house, but this darn caramel sauce makes the ice cream simply irresistible.