chocolate peanut butter cupcakes

choco pb hi hat cupcakeThese types of things are generally far too involved for me… all the steps required, they’re just too much. Even BF said he was “really impressed” with me… lol ~ I love that I can impress someone just by not being lazy. Amazing, right? So hard – make cupcakes, cool cupcakes. Make frosting, pipe frosting, chill frosting. Melt chocolate, dip cupcakes, and (worst of all) clean up melted chocolate mess.

Have you ever had to clean up melted chocolate? It’s absolutely exhausting. I might be being a little bit dramatic, but still. So hard.

The allure of chocolate and peanut butter though… I had to have these. I set aside the whole day to make these. And they were so worth it. If I could inject that peanut butter frosting straight into my veins, I’d be hooked. Light and fluffy with the perfect balance of peanut butter salty-sweetness. Amazing.

These are medium fancy and super cute… and who can resist peanut butter and chocolate? Plus the novelty of a “hand-dipped” cupcake? Irresistable. Luckily this recipe only makes 10 cupcakes – so right when I was reaching the point of being ready to give up, I was done! Now I know 10 cupcakes is my limit.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

[ Printable Recipe ]

makes 10 cupcakes, active time 1 hour, total time 3 hours

  • For the Chocolate Cupcakes:
  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup buttermilk
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • For the Peanut Butter Buttercream:
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large egg whites
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 12 tablespoons softened unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • For the Chocolate Coating:
  • 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Procedures

  1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°F. Line muffin pan with 10 cupcake cups. In medium bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt until combined; set aside.

  2. In large bowl, whisk sugar, buttermilk, oil, egg, and vanilla until combined and smooth. Whisk in dry mixture until smooth. Spoon batter into cupcake cups, dividing evenly. Bake until center is just set, about 25 minutes. Let cool in pan 10 minutes, then transfer cupcakes to wire rack to cool completely.

  3. While cupcakes are cooling, prepare the buttercream. In bowl of standing mixer, whisk sugar, egg whites, and salt until combined. Set bowl over pan of simmering water and gently whisk until mixture registers 160 degrees F on instant read thermometer. Immediately transfer to mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Whip on medium-high speed until mixture resembles shaving cream and is just cool. On medium speed, whip in butter, one piece at a time, until combined and creamy. Add peanut butter and vanilla and beat until smooth. Transfer buttercream to pastry bag fitted with a plain 1/2-inch tip.

  4. Pipe about 1/3 cup frosting onto each cupcake. Chill cupcakes in fridge until buttercream is completely firm, about 1 hour.

  5. When cupcakes have chilled, make the chocolate coating. Place chocolate and oil in a medium bowl and place over a pan of barely simmering water. Gently whisk until chocolate has just melted and mixture is smooth. Transfer to a large mug.

  6. Holding cupcake by the bottom, carefully dip in chocolate to submerge all of the frosting. Pull up and let excess chocolate drop off for a few seconds before turning cupcake right side up. Transfer to cooling rack and repeat with remaining cupcakes. Let cupcakes rest a few minutes to allow chocolate to set and buttercream to soften before serving.

Notes:

  • When preparing buttercream, make sure the butter is soft, or it won’t easily incorporate into the buttercream.
  • If you don’t have a pastry bag or tip, fill a zip-lock bag with buttercream and then snip 1/2 inch off corner.
  • Avoid letting the bowl touch the simmering water, or it will overheat the mixture.
  • You will have leftover chocolate coating. This is purposefully done so that there is enough to easily dip each cupcake. Freeze leftovers for the next time.
  • Store the cupcakes in a cool, dry place to enjoy a creamy, soft buttercream. For continued storage, refrigerate. Before serving, allow cupcakes to come to room temperature to re-soften the buttercream.

[ adapted from serious eats ]

mocha brownie cupcake

mocha cupcake

It’s a cupcake, no, a brownie, no, a cupcake… It’s chocolate. And coffee. It’s “mocha”. Gail sent me this recipe for our baking date this weekend. It’s straight from the Hershey’s website where they call it a “European Mocha Fudge Cake”. As I was reading the recipe I decided that it looked suspiciously similar to a brownie recipe.

To save time, and, more importantly, to use these super cute cupcake wrappers, we baked them into cupcakes. Once baked, our suspicions were confirmed – little brownie cupcakes, browniecakes, cup-brownies. Cup-brownies? That should be right… Call them whatever you want, I will call them delicious. And Gail will back me up 110%.

The real star here is the frosting. The mocha “frosting” is really just a coffee-flavored whipped cream topping. It’s amazingly light and sweet, like a sweet caffe latte. Once you pair the coffee topping with the dark chocolate brownie, delicious mocha love is born. Yes, ladies and gentleman, when chocolate and coffee fall in love and get married, that is where mocha comes from. (Be sure to tell all your children). I’m pretty sure Gail and I could have polished off that whole bowl of frosting alone, but we restrained ourselves… We deserve a frickin’ medal.

I was so good, I used the leftover frosting for a second dessert, I can’t wait to try it when I get home! If it’s good, maybe you’ll get to know what it was… [insert suspenseful music]

Mocha Brownie Cupcakes

Printable Recipe

  • 1-1/4 cups (2-1/2 sticks) butter
  • 3/4 cup Cocoa
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup finely chopped pecans (nope, we left these out)
  • COFFEE WHIPPED TOPPING (recipe below)
  1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two 12-cup cupcake pans with the prettiest liners you can find.
  2. Melt butter in small saucepan. Remove from heat and add cocoa; cool slightly.
  3. Beat eggs in large bowl until foamy. Add salt and vanilla, then gradually pour in sugar, beating well. Add cooled chocolate mixture and blend thoroughly.
  4. Fold in flour. Stir in pecans. (if using)
  5. Pour mixture into prepared pans.
  6. Bake  about 18 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks to finish cooling.
  7. Once cooled, frost with coffee topping. Refrigerate 1 hour or longer before serving. Store covered in refrigerator.

.

COFFEE WHIPPED TOPPING

  • 1-1/2 cups cold whipping cream
  • 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 2 teaspoons powdered instant coffee
  1. Whip cream with instant coffee until frothy, add brown sugar and continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

[Adapted from Hershey’s]

mini oreo cheesecakes

oreo cheesecake mini

When I was young, I hated the cream filling inside Oreos. I would scrape it out and give it to my sister, who in turn would give me her cream-less cookies. We made quite a team, conveniently hating what the other liked. It came in handy with food, because we could give each other the parts we didn’t like (for example, I would eat her entire chicken pot pie crust while she would eat just the filling), not so handy in the case of choosing what music to listen to, what tv shows to watch, or anything else really. But food, that was the one arena where we seemed to have a symbiotic relationship; despite that we spent the rest of our time trying to kill each other. We’re much nicer now, I think so at least… (Right, sissy?)

Having recently gotten over my hatred of all things dairy, cheesecake is one item I am just now starting to appreciate. I still don’t like for it to be too “cheesecake-y”, but I figured my love of oreos would balance it out. Another thing I’ve gotten over – my hatred of Oreo’s cream filling. I wish I still hated all these things, since none of them are really benefitting me at all. Don’t you wish you conveniently hated things like cream cheese, butter, ice cream, and oreo filling? That’d be great, right? Too bad I outgrew those, I guess. 🙂 On the up-side, it means I get to make things like this: cute, little bite-size oreo cheesecakes. Aren’t they so cute?

Boyfriend, just like big sis, hates on Oreo cookies. He doesn’t like their texture, apparently it’s “too grainy”. These cheesecakes tackle both of our dislikes and tricks us into eating all these wonderful calories we don’t really need. The Oreos make the cheesecake taste like oreo cookies and cream (so it’s not “too cheesecake-y”) and the cheesecake softens the Oreos so that they aren’t “too grainy”. Everyone wins! (Except our waistlines….) I actually halved AND lightened this recipe, because A – I have no need to have 30 mini cheesecakes laying around and B – it’s so easy to halve (and lighten)!

mini oreo cheesecakes

Yield: 30

Ingredients

  • 42 Oreos, 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped (even "reduced fat" work!)
  • 2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature (I used 1/3 fat)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
  • 1 cup sour cream (Use light and think of all the calories you've saved while you stuff your face with mini cheesecakes)
  • "A pinch" of salt

Instructions

  1. 1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners & place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each.
  2. 2. Beat cream cheese with mixer until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, beat until combined, then add vanilla.
  3. 3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating until incorporated. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.
  4. 4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake about 22 minutes, or until filling is set. Outsides should be stiff, it's ok if the centers jiggle a little when you tap the pan. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate uncovered (or they will get condensation on top) at least 4 hours.
https://wee-eats.com/2011/08/16/mini-oreo-cheesecake/

[ Adapted from Martha Stewart ]

strawberry cupcakes – and how to fix buttercream frosting

strawberry cupcake main

I’m still working through the summer strawberry harvest, not that I’m growing them – but I can’t seem to stop buying them. I don’t know what I plan to do with all these strawberries, but I always seem to find something. Today? Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry swiss meringue buttercream frosting (quite a mouthful, no?). This is probably my favorite frosting in the whole world, and I’m not generally a “frosting” person. I’m usually perfectly content to eat my cupcakes sans frosting and call it a day, but this frosting… this frosting is absolutely divine.

This wasn’t my first time making buttercream frosting, but it was my first time breaking it. “Broken buttercream” is apparently a common problem in the baking world, I guess I was just lucky that I’d never encountered it. It was so scary… I didn’t know what to do with myself. Luckily, I remembered this book that I got when I worked at Sur la Table.

I remember the exact moment I decided to buy the book, a coworker was looking through it and commented on how “it even shows you how to fix broken buttercream!” That seemed like a handy enough thing to know, and it gave me that last little nudge I needed to buy it. Not that I “needed” to buy it, I don’t think I “needed” a single thing I bought there. Sidenote: never work for a store you enjoy shopping at – I’m pretty sure I made negative money working there. I basically paid them to let me work there. Sad.

Broken buttercream happens when your mixture becomes too warm or too cold, and it causes the buttercream mixture to separate. The initial problem, I thought, was that my buttercream was too warm. I am in the desert, after all, and the butter was definitely a bit too soft as I was adding it. I remember thinking “I’m surprised this is working” just moments before I saw the frosting separate. The solution for broken buttercream that is too warm is to cool the bowl in an ice bath while continuing to beat How the heck am I supposed to create an ice bath around my mixer anyway? I tried holding a bag of ice up, but then my hand got cold so I just stuck the whole thing in the fridge for about 30 minutes. After that, I took it out and began whipping to no avail. I chilled it longer… another 30 minutes… nothing.

My stupid buttercream was stupid broken and I was so angry (since I didn’t really care about the cupcakes, they were merely a vessel for delivering this magical frosting into my mouth). Then I realized I had probably chilled the buttercream too much, and that now I had the opposite problem – my buttercream was too cold. Apparently, buttercream is the Goldilocks of frostings. Stupid Goldilocks, I never liked her much anyway.

I was one step from throwing it out and starting over when I had one last burst of motivation. The book said to put the bowl over simmering water for a few minutes until it was warmed… that wasn’t happening. Instead, I just soaked a dish towel with really hot water, rung it out, and held it against the side of the bowl while whipping with the paddle attachment. Voila – great success! Now that I spent like four times as long making this frosting as I had intended, it was FINALLY time to frost my cupcakes. At least I learned a valuable lesson… just look at those beauties 🙂

Strawberry Cupcakes

Printable Recipe

  • 2 3/4 C all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 C cake flour, (not self-rising)
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 8 oz unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 1/4 C sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 large egg white
  • 1 C whole milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 C diced strawberries
  • Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk flours, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

2. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, then eggs (1 at a time) beating after each addition. Scrape down sides of bowl.

3. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk and ending with dry (so 1/3 flour>1/2 milk>1/3 flour>1/2 milk>1/3 flour). Mix on low until incorporated. Scrape sides of bowl. Stir in strawberries.

4. Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full. Bake cupcakes until testers about 20 minutes until testers come out clean. Let cool in tins on wire racks. Cupcakes will keep, covered & unfrosted for up to 3 days, unless otherwise noted.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting

Printable Recipe

  • 4 large egg whites, room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into tablespoons
  • 1 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, pureed
  1. Place whites and sugar in a heatproof mixer bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Whisk until sugar dissolves and mixture registers 160 degrees on a candy thermometer. (or until the mixture is smooth when rubbed between fingers)
  2. Remove from heat and attach bowl to a mixer. Whisk on medium speed for 5 minutes. Increase speed to medium-high, and whisk until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 6 minutes. Reduce speed to medium, and add butter, 1 piece at a time, whisking well after each addition.
  3. Switch to a paddle attachment. With mixer on low, add strawberry puree, and beat until smooth, 3 to 5 minutes. Use immediately, or cover, and refrigerate up to 2 days.

[Recipe from Martha Stewart: Cupcakes]