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Kitchen Sink Cupcakes Recipe – delicious sweet and salty, creamy and crunchy cupcakes topped with chips, pretzels, toffee, and chocolate chips!
Craving something insanely delicious? Something that melts in your mouth and explodes with flavor that is sweet and salty? Something that is soft and rich and creamy and crispy and crunchy?
You, my friend, need my kitchen sink cupcakes.
Kitchen Sink Cupcakes are what happens when you throw everything but the kitchen sink on your cupcakes – a bunch of flavors that shouldn’t go together, but do in the best way ever.
We hope you love this recipe as much as we do!
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At Sweet C’s, I add lots of tips in all of my recipes – because I am a home cook without any formal training, and I find I am more confident making dishes when I understand why it works, and what each ingredient means to the flavor of a recipe – my goal is for even the most beginner home cook to feel empowered in the kitchen.
I want each reader to walk away with a solid knowledge of each recipe, with all of the tips I’ve gathered from extensive testing of each recipe. I also answer questions my friends and family have asked about my recipes, to help everyone better understand the processes we use – and why!
Table of contents
Kitchen Sink Cupcakes
If you’re looking for a cupcake that is absolutely loaded with flavor and all sorts of different textures, this recipe is it.
This is one of those ultimate cravings recipes – loaded with sweet and salty, creamy and crunchy that is so addictive, you’ll want to eat them all! Best of all, these cupcakes are incredibly easy to make sine we’re kicking up the flavor of a boxed cake mix, so you can whip them up whenever the craving strikes.
You’re going to love these cupcakes for so many reasons, including:
- The sweet and salty flavor combination is totally addictive – this recipe is to die for!
- We love how creamy and rich the icing is, especially with crunchy chips and pretzels. The different textures make this cupcake so fun to eat.
- We’re starting with a boxed cake mix and loading it up with a ton of flavor with pudding, greek yogurt or sour cream, and espresso powder!
- These cupcakes are cute without much of a hassle – the toppings make for perfect easy decoration, no decorating skills needed!
- You can add other sweet or salty snacks or candies to make your own kitchen sink creation – remember, add everything…. but the kitchen sink!
How To Make Kitchen Sink Cupcakes
If you can make boxed cupcakes, you can make these crazy easy kicked-up kicthen sink cupcakes – but we’re sharing our top tips for perfect cupcakes below:
- Preheat oven fully before adding cupcakes – this helps your cupcakes bake evenly.
- Add about 3-4 tbsp cupcake batter to cupcake liners – this will give you perfect liner-sized cupcakes!
- Bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle of cupcakes comes out clean – this should take 18-20 minutes.
- Chill cupcakes completely before frosting – this is crucial, or your frosting will melt all over your cupcakes and you won’t have anything to put your toppings in!
- Make frosting while your cupcakes cool so that you don’t make it too early. If you’re not eating cupcakes immediately after making frosting, it needs to be refrigerated within 2 hours of making.
- Don’t add toppings until you’re ready to eat cupcakes – chips and pretzels get soggy quickly, so it is best to save them for right before you serve so that they still have some crunch!
What To Top Kitchen Sink Cupcakes With
For this kitchen sink cupcake recipe we’re focusing on salty, sweet, creamy, and crunchy – and going for a combination of chips and candy.
We used:
- Pretzels
- Potato chips
- Toffee bits
- Chocolate Chips
- Caramel Sauce, to drizzle over
I used Snyderโs brand Itty Bitty Pretzels but you can use any pretzels, some large ones will just need to be broken up a bit.
You can pick more toppings like peanuts, peanut brittle, Reeses Pieces, and even popcorn!
Since toppings can get soggy, we recommend topping right before serving for best results.
Other Dessert Recipes You’ll Love
If you’re looking for other delicious easy dessert recipes, please check out some of our recent favorites:
For our entire dessert archives, click here.
Kitchen Sink Cupcakes Recipe
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Kitchen Sink Cupcakes Recipe
Ingredients
- Cupcakes:
- 1 15oz. box chocolate cake mix
- 1 3.4oz box instant chocolate pudding mix
- ยฝ cup Greek yogurt
- ยพ cup vegetable oil
- ยฝ cup whole milk
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ยฝ teaspoon salt
- ยฝ teaspoon espresso powder
- ยพ cup mini chocolate chips
- Frosting:
- 2 cups heavy cream
- ยฝ cup powdered sugar
- ? cup instant vanilla pudding mix, dry
- Mini pretzels, crushed, for topping
- Potato chips, crushed, for topping
- Toffee bits, crushed, for topping
- Mini chocolate chips, for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line a cupcake pan with liners.
- Mix together all of the cupcake ingredients for the cupcake batter in a large mixing bowl.
- Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop 2 scoops of batter into each liner (about 3 to 4 tablespoons).
- Bake the cupcakes for 18 to 22 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean from the center.
- Let cupcakes cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
- While cupcakes are cooling, whip together heavy cream, powdered sugar, and pudding mix in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment until light and fluffy
- Place frosting in a piping bag and pipe onto the cupcakes.
- Just before serving, sprinkle the crushed chips, pretzels, toffee bits, and mini chocolate chips on top of the cupcakes.
Notes
- I used Snyderโs brand Itty Bitty Pretzels but you can use any pretzels, some large ones will just need to be broken up a bit.
- Because our frosting has a whipped cream base, our cupcakes will need to be put in the refrigerator within 2 hours of preparation.
- Pretzels and chips can get soggy, so I always recommend adding them right before eating the cupcakes!
- Caramel drizzle is an optional topping for these cupcakes – we love the extra indulgence.
- Sour cream may be used in place of greek yogurt.
- This recipe has not been tested with alternative milks such as almond or oat, I always use whole.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.