Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cupcakes


So, as I was making my list of food and desserts I was going to make, I had a hankering for cupcakes. I've been meaning to make some since Thanksgiving, but just never got around to it. I have made Chocolate Cupcakes with peanut butter on the inside before, but I kind of cheated a little (instead of making the peanut butter center I put a mini Reese's cup inside the batter) and they were really good.

So, I found this recipe from Taste of Home (I'm a tiny bit obsessed right now, seriously go get their cookbooks!) and thought it looked pretty good, a lot of liquids though, but that just made them nice and moist. Of course, I don't get to keep the cupcakes, my son gets one and the rest go off to my husband's work. Which is really a lot better, because then we'd just end up eating all the sweets, and too many sweets, though tasty, really isn't good for us.

These are really moist and quite tasty. I'm going to give you a double recipe for the frosting, if you are like me and do the swirly top then this is perfect. If you prefer to do a smooth top (using a knife or spatula instead of a decorator's bag and star tip) you won't need as much frosting.


Ingredients:

(For Peanut Butter filling)
3 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp milk

(For Batter)
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa (I would have used Ghirardelli but they were out)
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla

(For Frosting)
2/3 cup butter, softened
4 cups powdered (confectioners') sugar
12 Tbsp baking cocoa
6 - 8 Tbsp milk

Ok, now you can use the cheat here and just insert a mini Reese's Cup where this mix goes, and just skip it all together or you can use this peanut butter mix.

So in a small bowl you'll put in your cream cheese (softened), peanut butter, milk and sugar and beat it until its smooth and well mixed, then just set it aside.


Now in your large mixing bowl you'll throw all your ingredients for your batter in your bowl and mix away. Really that's pretty much it, no real order, no real prep just put them all in. Mix it all together and it'll be nice and runny. (It's supposed to be runny so don't be worried, it'll turn out great.)


Now, you'll use Jumbo muffin cups here, preferably the foil ones lined with paper, they stand up on their own and you won't need a muffin pan.

Fill the muffin cup about half way with the chocolate mixture, and then put a small dollop of the peanut butter mixture in (or your Reese's cup). You can put more chocolate over the peanut butter, but it won't really matter, it just floats up. Fill up all your muffin cups (about 12-16) and pop them in the oven (on a jelly roll pan) at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until it tests done.

Before adding any of the frosting, they need to be completely cooled.

In a large bowl throw in all of your frosting ingredients beat them on low until nice and smooth. Mmm it looks really good!

Ok, now you can use a decorator bag here and a Wilton 1M tip if you'd like. Or just smooth on the icing with a spatula.

Before frosting, I recommend removing the cupcake liners. Using the tip start from the outside of the cup cake in a circular pattern and end in the middle. This always reminds me of an ice cream cone, but I was in a hurry and just slapped some icing on so, they are a little sloppy! There it is done, yummy, moist, store in an airtight container and enjoy!


1 comment:

  1. Mmmm. Those cupcakes look good. I like ones that are moist and have different flavors. Nice pictures, too.

    ReplyDelete