Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

It's official, I'm on a cupcake-making roll. That's what happens when your husband goes out of town for a week for work. Gotta do something to keep myself entertained, and cleaning is only fun for so long. Plus, I feel like I should make up for all the weeks I didn't bake any cupcakes. I'm certainly a little behind schedule so consider it trying to make up for lost time. These peanut butter-filled chocolate cupcakes (not on Martha's website) have been the easiest of the bunch so far, but I don't expect to get off the hook that easily with the cupcakes in the rest of this section.

First order of business was chopping all the chocolate and cutting the butter into small pieces to start those ingredients melting over a simmering pot of water. While the chocolate and butter was melting I whisked together the dry ingredients and also made the peanut butter filling. I liked that this recipe didn't require the use of a hand mixer to put everything together. I also enjoyed that I could use paper liners (I took them off for the picture) instead of having to butter and flour the pans. It was a nice break since I had to butter and flour the cupcake pans for the two previous recipes.

Putting these cupcakes together was done similarly to these strawberry-jam tea cakes only the amount of batter and filling was different. I layered, in this order, 2 tablespoons of chocolate batter, 1 tablespoon of peanut butter filling, 1 tablespoon of batter and 1 teaspoon of filling, swirling the teaspoon of filling with a toothpick to get a swirl pattern on top. While these cupcakes also turned out to be larger than they were probably supposed to be I was much closer in getting the number of cupcakes the recipe said I would yield. The recipe said I would get 12 and I got 11. I was pretty happy with that. But knowing how the tea cakes had turned out I tried to use smaller tablespoons to make sure the batter would last, and to ensure the cupcakes wouldn't be enormous.

The cupcakes were baked for 40 total minutes with a turn halfway through the baking time. If memory serves me correctly I ended up adding about 2 extra minutes to the baking time because I didn't think they were quite done when I tested them with a toothpick. Since they were a little larger than they probably should have been, a little extra time made sense. Eventually I will get this tablespoon layering thing down. There are still quite a few cupcakes left in this section to give me some more practice.

I did also appreciate that these cupcakes didn't require any glazing, layering or frosting after they were done baking. A little reprieve from all the work I have done on the two previous cupcakes in this section. I took these cupcakes into work and everyone enjoyed them. I also sampled one myself and thought they were quite tasty and would go great with a glass of milk, or some vanilla ice cream. The only thing I was a little disappointed with was that I wanted the peanut butter filling in the middle to be a little farther down in the cupcake so when you cut the cupcake in half it would look like the filling was floating in the middle. But, it also could have just been the cupcake I had, I'm not sure what everyone else's looked like in the middle.

In other baking news, non-cupcake related, I'm going to try to post a Valentine's Day treat later this week. Maybe even in time for the actual holiday and before I'm invaded by my husband's family (who I love... seriously!) this coming weekend. Oh, and if you're wondering, yes, it did snow (a lot) in Connecticut this weekend. Turns out we didn't have to find Nemo, Nemo found us. Here are just a few pictures I took yesterday after shoveling off our deck so we could get out of the house.

Told you it was a lot of snow.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Forgive me cupcakes for I have sinned. It's been several weeks since I last baked one of you...

Who knew getting married would monopolize so much of my time? And I fear it's only going to get worse from here since we're now 41 days away. Holy crap. I find that when you say it out loud (or read/write it) it really hits home how close it is. I'm not even panicking, at least not yet. We're pretty well organized, unless there's something major that I forgot. We'll see.

While I have been busy with wedding events and preparations and real-life things the past couple weeks this week I'm back! Did you miss me? My goal is to not take another cupcake hiatus until the wedding. I can't promise I won't, but I'm going to try not to.

When I left you last I had made a couple cakes for some birthdays, but my last cupcake adventure from Martha's book were these chocolate chunk cupcakes. The first of three in the cookie cupcake series in the third section of the book. I had high hopes for them, but they were disappointing, mostly because the chunks were so chunky they sunk and didn't make for very good looking cupcakes. I was hoping the second installment in this section, peanut butter cupcakes, would yield better results.

From the onset I wasn't very excited about these cupcakes because in my previous experience with peanut butter cupcakes I didn't enjoy them. The cupcakes were a bit too heavy, dense and peanut buttery for my taste. I feared that I would get the same result from this recipe. I didn't. Phew.

Let's break down the recipe, shall we? It was easy, plain and simple. I did get a bit thrown when it came time to fill the liners. The recipe said to fill the liners with 3 scant tablespoons of batter. I still don't know what that means, but because I was able to successfully make the cupcakes without that knowledge I didn't bother to look it up afterward. I used a tablespoon to fill the liners and filled them roughly three-quarters full. I just eyeballed it. The recipe said I should yield 20 cupcakes. I ran out of batter at 20 cupcakes so I figured my measurements were pretty close to on point.

However, when baking time came and they took longer than the recipe said they should have, I thought I might have made them a little too big. Martha said to bake the cupcakes about 13 minutes with a turn halfway through the baking time. I ended up baking them for 19 minutes. They were good size, but they certainly weren't too big. In fact they were the perfect size for my taste.

I let the cupcakes cool completely and then began work on the frosting (recipe can also be found with the link above). I let the cream cheese and butter get to room temperature while I was baking the cupcakes so it wasn't too difficult to work with. The frosting was also easy to make and didn't take long. Once I was done with that I used my new, small offset spatula that I got at my recent bridal shower (thanks Laney!) to frost the cupcakes. I had quite a bit of frosting left over. Enough that I probably could have frosted 20 more cupcakes. I threw the excess away. Wasteful yes, but also good for my waistline. We're 41 days out people, it's all about the waistline right now.

After all the cupcakes were frosted I put them in the fridge for 10 minutes to set so I could finish them off with my favorite detail of the cupcakes, the criss-cross fork pattern! I just think it looks really cool, like they're peanut butter cookies, but they're actually cupcakes... boo-yah! Even though I put confectioner's sugar on the fork it still stuck a little when I pressed it into the frosting. Most of the cupcakes came out ok, but some lost a little frosting to the fork tines. Perfection is boring. Imperfection is what builds character, and I thought the cupcakes turned out looking really nice.

They also turned out tasting really nice. Relax, stay calm, I ate less than half of a cupcake. Truthfully I almost always only eat half a cupcake when I bake and that's usually the one that I take the pictures of. I am dedicated to shedding for the wedding... most of the time. I was expecting the cupcake to be very heavy, dense and peanut buttery like the peanut butter cupcakes of the past. While these cupcakes were heavy in weight, the texture of the cake was actually quite light and fluffy. I really enjoyed them. The frosting wasn't even too much. I was so pleasantly surprised and it took some willpower to only eat half.

Ritz (Tag-A-Longs)

Don't they look delicious? That's because they are! Ritz, as my family calls them, have been part of the Pavlock family cookie tray since I can remember having Christmas cookies. It wasn't until I had moved away from home and made these that my friend said, "they're like Tag-A-Longs," the delicious peanut buttery cookie the Girl Scouts tempt you with every year. She was right, I had just never called them that, and I still don't. To me, they will always be Ritz, but they can be whatever you want to call them.

These "cookies" are extremely easy to make, they take less than an hour from start to finish. Enjoy!

Ritz (Tag-A-Longs)

60 Ritz crackers

2 1-lb bags milk chocolate Make 'N Mold candy coating (available at A.C. Moore and Michaels)

Creamy peanut butter

1. Line 2 cookie sheets with wax paper. This will make it easier to peel the "cookies" off the sheets once they are set.

2. Spread peanut butter on Ritz crackers. Use enough peanut butter to cover the crackers but not too much or they will be difficult to cover with chocolate.

3. Melt candy coating according to directions on package.

4. One at a time drop each peanut butter covered cracker in chocolate, turning until completely covered. Place covered cracker on cookie sheet to set. Repeat until all crackers are covered and let them set. To speed up the process crackers can be placed in the refrigerator or freezer until chocolate coating is firm.

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Here it is... the 1st Christmas cookie of the season! I've been baking fast and furiously for the past few days. There's only so much time before I have to start distributing these scrumptious treats and I can't distribute what I have yet to bake.

I have been baking Christmas cookies since I was a very little kid with my mom. Back then I didn't really help much other than making a mess. But now I make the cookies and the mess all by myself. I've decided to share the recipes for my Christmas cookies rather than what I've been doing with Project Cupcake. Cookies are pretty self explanatory and I've made most of them before so it's not quite as exciting as embarking on new cupcake adventures.

This recipe for Peanut Butter Blossoms I got from my mom. Where it originated before her I haven't the slightest idea, but here it is and I hope you enjoy it.

Peanut Butter Blossoms

48 Hershey's Kisses

1/2 cup shortening (I used butter)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 egg

2 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

extra sugar for rolling

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove foil from Hershey's Kisses.

2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well.

3. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.

4. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in sugar and place on ungreased cookie sheet (I always grease my cookie sheets).

5. Bake 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into the center of each cookie; cookie will crack around the edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter, jelly, peanut butter, jelly, peanut butter, jelly... Family Guy anyone? Or at least I think that's from Family Guy. It's ok, I don't watch it either, but I've heard that somewhere before. First, let me start with the photos. A lovely friend of mine recently purchased for me a portable photo studio as an early birthday gift and these cupcakes were my first guinea pig in trying it out. I think they came out pretty well, especially since it came with no instructions. Practice will surely make perfect, right?

I should also apologize for being a day late with my post. You may or may not be aware of the massive snow storm that came through Connecticut this weekend. We were one of the fortunate ones to not lose power and to not have any significant damage to our home. However, some of our friends lost power and still don't have it back, so we've been taking people in so they have a warm place to sleep and hot water to shower. Needless to say things have been a little busy around the house and my office has been monopolized by house guests. Right now the house is currently empty, except for Rollins who's sleeping on the couch (gotta love a full day of doggy daycare) so I'm trying to make the most of my free time tonight before everyone comes back.

So, moving on to what's featured in my pictures... peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. These cupcakes are the last in the first section of the cookbook so I was excited to make them for many reasons. One, because I feel like I've reached a milestone in my project in the fact that I've completed the first section. Two, Bobby's favorite thing in the whole world is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Yes, he may be 30 years old, but he could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (or pizza) everyday and be completely happy with that. So, I was excited to see how my peanut butter and jelly sandwich expert would like peanut butter and jelly cupcakes.

Before I started baking I remembered to leave out everything that had to be at room temperature before I started working. I also read through the entire recipe. My first order of business was chopping the peanuts, which is rather difficult considering that peanuts are pretty small (I also ended up using honey roasted because I can't read. But I will swear that when I put them in my shopping cart, the package said dry roasted). But, I did manage to successfully chop the peanuts without successfully chopping off any of my fingers. Hooray. After chopping the peanuts all the hard work was pretty much done.

Similar to these applesauce-spice cupcakes, the batter for these cupcakes was also quite thick so I wasn't able to use my pour-by-Pyrex method for the second week in a row. Very depressing. Again I used a tablespoon and spooned about 1 1/2 tablespoons into each cupcake liner. All the cupcakes came out pretty perfectly and I only yielded 2 less cupcakes than the recipe said I would. Both batches of cupcakes were baked for 22 minutes with a turn halfway through the baking time. They came out perfectly with this amount of baking time. Golden brown, and just the right size.

Time for the frosting, and a new one to make at that! Double win! These cupcakes called for creamy peanut butter frosting, doesn't that sound delicious and fattening? This frosting wasn't too difficult to make (and I got to use my stand mixer) but I did have a moment of panic when I was afraid the heavy cream wasn't going to turn into medium-firm peaks. It took a little longer than normal and I nervously stared at it every few minutes wondering if it was ever going to firm up, and what my back-up plan would be if it didn't. Luckily, my whisk and mixer started doing their thing and I had peaks! I folded the whipped cream into the peanut butter-cream cheese mixture to finish everything off. The frosting wasn't as thick as I thought it would be and it was actually quite spreadable. For the finishing touch each cupcake got a little dollop of strawberry preserves. I went with preserves instead of jelly because I like that preserves have little chunks of strawberry in them.

To be honest, from the start I didn't think I would like these cupcakes. Not because I'm not a fan of peanut butter and jelly, because I am, but because I had a feeling these would be pretty dense and pretty peanut buttery cupcakes... I was right. I think I would have liked them more if the frosting was a little sweeter. I kept tasting it as I was adding each ingredient while making it, waiting for the sweetness to emerge and I got nothing. I didn't try a completed cupcake until I took the pictures and I still had the same issue. I needed more sweetness. I had one bite and didn't eat any more. I hate to say I didn't like a cupcake, because it feels wrong. But, I didn't like these. Luckily for me and my taste buds, there are roughly 50 more cupcakes to make... yes, I counted.