Dark chocolate cupcakes with caramel buttercream

Blogger The Busty Baker made these dark chocolate cupcakes with caramel buttercream (photo is hers, go there for the recipes) and writes:

Once they were cooled, I debated on what kind of frosting to top them with. I wanted to try something I hadn’t done before, so that left out a lot of what I thought would pair well with chocolate: mint, berries, more chocolate. I didn’t want to do just plain vanilla, so I decided to try caramel. It would be kind of like a Rolo candy! I used caramel ice cream topping for the flavoring, but it didn’t seem to ever be enough caramel flavor for me. It wasn’t until I drizzled some over the top of the frosted cupcake that it really tasted the way I wanted it to.

All in all, I think they came out alright. Not fantastic, but not a total let down. The frosting needs a bit of work before I’m completely satisfied with it. And the cupcake itself—well, the quest continues. The flavor itself was good, but even with the sour cream acting as the moisture, which I’ve had great success with in other recipes, the cupcake was dry. This is definitely not the “perfect chocolate cupcake” in my book. So the search lingers on. I think the next one I’m going to try is on the back of the Hershey’s cocoa powder container. It’s been suggested to me from a couple different people, so we’ll see how that one goes! I also had suggested to me by a coworker to use mayonnaise in my batter to add moisture. The thought completely freaks me out, but I’m willing to give it a try. Has anyone else made a mayonnaise cake before? Can you taste the mayonnaise at all? Cause I totally hate the stuff… so I’m a little skeptical.