Peanut Butter Cupcakes!

Since our half marathon training is coming to an end, we only had to run once this weekend, and it thankfully fell on Saturday. So, this left me with lots of options for my Sunday. I haven’t made cupcakes in awhile, so I figured I’d give them a whirl.

I got the 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly for Christmas, but hadn’t actually made any recipes from the book until today. The book itself is really cute and displays nicely in my kitchen, but I found myself shying away from it and going to the internet to find recipes instead. Well, last night I buckled down and decided on a recipe from the book; Peanut Butter Cupcakes!

The recipe is pretty straight forward – eggs, peanut butter, sugar, butter and flour. I didn’t have any self rising flour, so I added a teaspoon of baking soda. I also snuck a taste of the batter before putting it in the cups, and it seemed to be missing something. So, I also threw in a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Look at me, getting all inventive with my recipes! I decided to use my hand mixer this time, and it was much easier. I still want a stand mixer, though!

The batter itself was really thick. I had trouble getting out of the bowl and into the cupcake wrappers. I wound up using two spoons – one to grab the batter from the bowl, and another to then scrape it off of the first spoon. They looked like messy blobs when they went in the oven, and I was sure they were going to come out looking equally messy. After 20 minutes, I was surprised at how cupcake-like they looked!

The recipe came with a peanut butter inspired icing, but I decided to go chocolate. I mean, what goes better with peanut butter than chocolate? Just ask the people at Reese’s. There was a chocolate buttercream recipe in the book, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I was low on butter, didn’t have any milk, and I didn’t think it was worth a trek to the store, when I have to go later for my weekly grocery shopping anyway. I had some left-over frosting, so I iced one with chocolate, and one with vanilla. Then I remembered I had some semi-sweet chocolate chips. So, I decided to melt them! The cupcakes have a really glossy sheen on them, and they look as delicious as they taste! Though, as you can tell, I need to work on my icing skills.

Here’s the recipe for the Peanut Butter Cupcakes. If you’re in the market for a cupcake cookbook, I definitely suggest this one. There are TONS of variations for each of the recipes, and clearly if you stray a bit, they still work out well!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups self-rising flour
4 eggs
1 cup crunchy peanut butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 18 paper baking cups in muffin pans.
2. Combine butter, sugar, flour, and eggs in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2-3 minutes.
3. Stir in the peanut butter until well combined.
4. Spoon the batter into the cups. Bake 20 minutes. remove pans from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then remove the cupcakes and cool on a rack. Frost & enjoy!

Happy nomzing!