Dulce De Leche Cupcakes

Dulce de Leche Cupcakes.....ahhh!  What can I say, I love Dulce de Leche and I like to eat it by spoonfuls- straight from the jar! And the thought of it in a cupcake?!  Well, I just had to try it!

I have seen so many recipes out there and I just couldn't make up my mind. I didn't know whether  to do it with chocolate or vanilla cake, filling, no filling or just plain with Dulce de Leche buttercream.

After intensive searching, Just Jenn's cupcake recipe seemed to be the most appealing to me.  She uses brown sugar in her vanilla cupcake and I thought this made sense for this particular flavor combination.

Now, filling or no filling? I went for the filling with Dulce de Leche.  The thought of biting into that gooey-yum was irresistible to me!  So I did.

For the frosting, don't even ask!  I had seen so many versions and all sounded too sweet for my taste.  In the end, I opted for the Cream Cheese recipe that I had seen in and adapted from Joy the Baker.   I figured Cream Cheese would tone down the sugars.

Looks really good, right?!  My own personal oppinion?  Waaay too sweet for my taste!!  Dulce de Leche in the cupcake, Dulce de Leche in the frosting and drizzled with Dulce de Leche.....even for me, a Dulce de Leche aficionado, well....it's just too much.  But, hey, that's me! 

What would I change??
This is what I would and will try next time:  Same cake (well maybe I'll use my own, it'll work just fine!), same filling, change the frosting to Swiss Vanilla Buttercream (it's not as sweet!) and finish with Dulce de Leche drizzle.  I think it would be more balanced this way.

Another version, where in South America is more common and now I can see why, is chocolate cake with Dulce de Leche filling!  That makes more sense to me, I think.

Guess I have to experiment some more!