Fun Food Friday- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Just had to entice you right away :)

Last month I had the privilege of helping put on a bridal shower for my cousin.  It was a pretty large shower and had both male and females in attendance.  I wanted to do a bride's cupcake and a groom's cupcake.  I came up with the bride's cupcake pretty quickly (a strawberry yogurt cupcake filled with strawberries and topped with vanilla buttercream- recipe coming soon) but couldn't decide on a groom's cupcake.  Then Steve and I went to Detroit for a Tiger's game and whenever we go to Detroit we make sure to go to Taste Love Cupcakes, a Cupcake Bakery near Detroit that has won on Cupcake Wars.  They have the most amazing cupcakes!  Well this year we had a chocolate peanut butter cupcake that did not disappoint.  So that got me thinking that it would make a great groom's cupcake because you could put a mini Reese's on top to look like a top hat :).  So I set out to find a great Peanut Butter frosting recipe.  I knew I wanted to use my Buttermilk Brownie recipe for the cupcakes (I discovered while making The Pioneer Woman's Best Ever Chocolate Cake that it was the exact same recipe as my Buttermilk Brownies and does make the best cake).  Then I found a website called Javacupcakes.com that had a yummy looking recipe for Peanut Butter Frosting and oh my goodness was it ever amazing.  So you put the 2 together and...Voilà, one delicious cupcake!  And seriously, not very hard to make. So if you want to wow people with some cupcakes try these ones, I promise, you will not be disappointed.  The ones I made for this blog were for cookie time after church so I made mini-cupcakes for them.  I also made a batch of gluten free cupcakes because this frosting is gluten free, so I brought a box of them for my friend at church who can't have gluten.  And what you really want to do is make extra frosting because next week I'll show you what to do with that extra peanut butter frosting :)

Ingredients: Butter, Peanut Butter, Powdered Sugar, Whipping Cream

And then of course you will also want some cupcakes to frost :), you can see about that recipe here

In a mixer bowl cream together butter and peanut butter...

Until it is smooth and lighter

With the mixer on low add powdered sugar...

until it looks like this

Then add whipping cream

Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure all the sugar got incorporated

Then turn the mixer on high and beat for 3-4 minutes...

Or until the buttercream is light and fluffy

 

I frost mine with a Wilton 1A tip (this one) and this is how I do it

And then I like to put the mini-Reese's on top 

I put 4 gluten free cupcakes in a box for my friend who has Celiac

(I didn't put the Reese's on top of these because I didn't know if they were gluten free, plus I'm not sure they would fit since I put the frosting so high :))

Then for everyone else I made mini-cupcakes.  I frosted them the same way as the regular cupcake, just with a smaller tip

They turned out so cute!  Plus, you feel like you can eat about 3 since they're small :)

These 2 were definitely fans of them

 

This is how I displayed them at my cousin's shower.  The Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake was the Groom cupcake :).  The Bride's Cupcake was a Strawberry filled yogurt cupcake (recipe coming soon).

 

My mom just covered wine classes with tissue paper and tied a ribbon for the display.  Turned out so cute! (Sorry for the quality of the picture, I forgot to take a picture with my camera so I zoomed in on someone else's picture to get you a close up :))

 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Cupcakes
2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 cup boiling water

1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk + 1/2 TBS lemon juice)

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla

 

Sift together flour and sugar into a mixer bowl.  In a saucepan melt butter.  Add water and cocoa and bring to a boil for 30 seconds, stirring constantly.  Pour into bowl with flour/sugar mixture.  Beat on medium/high for 2 minutes.  Add buttermilk, eggs, baking soda and vanilla.  Beat 2 more minutes.  Pour into muffin tins with cupcake liners.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of a cupcake.  Cool.

 

Peanut Butter Frosting (Enough to frost 18 cupcakes)

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup creamy peanut butter

3 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

 

In a mixer bowl cream together the butter and peanut butter for 2-3 minutes.  The color will lighten a few shades.  With the mixer on low slowly add the powdered sugar.  Scrape down the bowl to make sure all the sugar got mixed in.  Pour in the heavy cream and beat on high for 3-4 minutes until it is light and fluffy.

 

Frost the cooled cupcakes