Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Most kids love peanut butter. Peanut Butter used to last in my pantry for several years, but now that I have two little crumb-crunchers, we go through jars lickety-split. Here's a quick and easy cake mix recipe adapted from Ann Byrn's The CakeMix Doctor that will have your peanut butter lovers begging for more!

Easy Peanut Butter Cupcakes

1 package of yellow cake mix

1 1/3 cups water

1/2 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth, use your favorite!)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Mini peanut butter cups, halved, for garnish

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease your cupcake cups and insert in muffin pan.


2. Mix cake mix, water, peanut butter, oil, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl for 2 minutes; batter should be well blended.


3. Spoon batter into cups about two thirds of the way full. Tip: cookie scoops work great for spooning batter into cups!


4. Place the pans in the oven and bake 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven and place on wire racks to cool.

After they are cooled, you can do almost anything you like with them. If your peanut-butter lover also loves jelly, take a small medicine bottle approximately 1 1/4 inches in diameter and press into the center of each cooled cupcake to make an indentation approximately 3/4 inch deep. Spoon your favorite jam or jelly directly in the hole. You will then frost over the whole cupcake, hiding the indentation, and voila! Peanut butter and jelly cupcakes!

Frostings are subjective; you can use any flavor you love, but what I most love is a delicious, easy peanut butter buttercream. It's like peanut butter overload! Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Buttercream

1/4 cup butter at room temperature

1/4 cup peanut butter

3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1 tsp. vanilla

2-4 Tbs. milk

In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugar, vanilla and milk and beat until all the sugar is dissolved and the frosting is creamy. If the frosting seems too stiff, add a little more milk, 1 Tbs. at a time.

Frost your cooled cupcake with the frosting and top with a half of a mini peanut butter cup. This cupcake practically begs for a glass of milk to go with it!

Enjoy!

Princessy cupcakes

Halloween Hooters and Scary Skulls

Lions, Monkeys, Alligators and Footballs

A Pirate's Life for Me

What Captain Jack wants, Captain Jack gets (at least on his birthday.) This year was all about the pirates. Jack wanted caramel cupcakes, but I wasn't too sure what the other kids would think. So, I made caramel and then I made the very kid-friendly cotton candy cuppycake with cotton candy frosting. Yes, there is real cotton candy involved and it is tremendously sweet. But, surprisingly kids and adults alike enjoyed them. Aaarrgh!


Caramel Cuppycakes
Cotton Candy Pirates

Oreo Overload

Out of all the cupcakes I make, my personal favorite is the Oreo Overload. As a baker, there's only so much of your own cupcakes you can manage to eat after awhile. But, I never get tired of the good old-fashioned Oreo cupcake. I use a double-stuf Oreo for the base of the cupcake, crumble Oreos into the batter and top it with vanilla buttercream that also has crushed Oreo's in it as well. I call it the Oreo Overload because obviously it's completely stuffed with Oreo's!

This cupcake is fabulous with any kind of cake. For extra indulgence, chocolate is the way to go. I find that these are even better after a couple of days, as the flavors meld together wonderfully. Calorie-counters beware!

Mixed Assortment

This mixed assortmetnt includes Key Lime, Almond, Strawberry, and Cookie Dough.

Later Gator

Today my sweet baby boy turned four years old. It seems like yesterday he was born, and now he's officially a little boy, no longer a toddler. I cried!

His favorite movie right now is Peter Pan; he adores Captain Hook and is obsessed with the crocodile that ate Hook's hand. Of course, he thinks it's an alligator, because that's what we have on this side of the world. So, he wanted Alligator cupcakes, which is exactly what he got. Best part: these were easy!

Instead of doing a bright green frosting, I opted to mix a little black into the green in order to make it more of an amphibious green. If you use too much, it turns out gray, so you really need to use it sparingly. If it does turn gray, just keep adding the green until you get it back to the right shade. I used Spearmint leaves for the eyes and attached eyeball candy to them. They turned out to be just what I wanted.

For the nose, I used green Swedish fish (cut off the tip of the tail.) The fish has a nice bumpiness to it that works well. I used chocolate-covered peanuts as nostrils; and lastly, I sprinkled a nice shimmery green on top to give the gator a little texture. Fortunately, Jack is super-excited and can't wait to take these to church tonight to share with his friends.

Jack insisted on decorating his own; I think it's very avant-garde for a 4 year old. Happy Birthday Baby!

Cookies!

I took a quick departure from the cuppycakes long enough to bake up some yummy chocolate chip cookies based on chocolatier Jacques Torres' famous chocolate chip cookies. My good friend Shana, took me to his shop in Manhattan a few weeks ago, and it was a bohemian chocolate paradise. http://www.mrchocolate.com/

Truly, he makes the best chocolate chip cookie I've ever had in my life. The recipe is the authorized version from the New York Times, and it's pretty simple. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/dining/091crex.html

The trick is to make the batter at least 24 hours before you bake because it makes for a tastier cookie. While I can't say my homemade version holds a candle to what I had at the shop, it was so good that my husband, who can take or leave sweets, sucked them all down and asked for more. He didn't even want me to share them with other people! Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Jacques Torres
Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling
2 cups minus 2 tablespoons
(8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
Sea salt.
1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.
Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.
Note: Disks are sold at Jacques Torres Chocolate; Valrhona fèves, oval-shaped chocolate pieces, are at Whole Foods.

Made with over one pound of chocolate disks, this will be the most chocolately cookie you've ever baked. Yummy!

Happy Graduation Don!

My best friend Don just graduated with his Master's Degree. We're very proud of him! He loves the cookie dough cupcakes, as do most chocolate lovers. Everyone thinks it's hard to do, but it's really not. The secret is to freeze the cookie dough before you bake it to ensure that it doesn't bake up as well. Freeze it and it will be doughy deliciousness.

Race Car Cuppycakes

24 Cookie Dough cuppycakes, 24 Peanut Butter cuppycakes with primary colored vanilla buttercream, topped with blue and chocolate race cars.

Caramel Cuppycakes

Caramel Cuppycakes are a personal favorite; even my 3-year-old likes it, and he has more discriminating taste than his little sister, the official taste-tester.

Wedding Cuppycakes

For Adam and Emily's wedding, we made 250 Cuppycakes. 125 were Key Lime with Coconut Buttercream and 125 were Almond with Almond Buttercream. The chocolate coins have Emily and Adam's names with a heart in between. The bride chose rock candy for the vibrant colors on each cuppycake.

The caterer, Janice Redding, provided the cake atop with a beautiful metal "P" for Palmer, the groom's last name. Her husband built the fabulous cupcake tower.

Spider Cupcakes

Happy Birthday Andrew!

Vacation

I will be on vacation this upcoming week, June 21-27. Feel free to send me an email, and I will respond when I get back!

Ladybug Invasion

All boxed up and ready to go.