Peanut Butter Cup Cakes

Well once again I have gotten a little bit behind. I had intended to update this as soon as my cupcakes were done but once again homework gets in the way. I've finally managed to get my homework load back under control so I should be able to get back to normal. I plan on making a new cupcake tomorrow so I'll probably have another post up here soon.

This weeks cupcake was a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter buttercream. It turned our rather well if I do say so myself. I even took a few of them to school to get some opinions other than my boyfriend and the family. Everyone really enjoyed them and I even got offered money to make some for someone. The only thing I'm not too happy about is the chocolate cupcake part. Don't get me wrong, it tastes good. I just want to figure out the perfect chocolate cupcake recipe you know? So from here on out I'll be experimenting with chocolate cupcakes until I get what I consider to be the ultimate chocolate cupcake recipe.

Chocolate Cupcake
Yeilds: 12 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup + 1/8 cup flour
1/4 cup + 1/8 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup boiling water

DIRECTIONS

1.) Preheat your oven to 350F and line your muffin tin with liners.
2.) In the bowl of a stand mixer (if you don't have one don't worry it's okay, just use a large mixing bowl) mix together all the dry ingredients.
3.) Add in the egg, milk, oil and vanilla and beat on medium speed for about a minute.
4.) Mix in the boiling water. The batter is going to look really really thin and runny but it's the way its supposed to look so its okay.
5.) Fill your liners 2/3 full. Since the batter is so runny i just put it in a measuring cup and poured it instead of my normal ice cream scoop method.
6.) Bake cupcakes for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool on a cooling rack.


Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups powdered sugar
about 1/8 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1.) Beat together the butter,salt, peanut butter and vanilla until nice and smooth.
2.) Slowly add in the powdered sugar.
3.) If the frosting gets too thick add in the milk as needed to make it a spreadable consistency.

Put your cupcakes together and garnish with mini peanut butter cups! Enjoy!!!

Nutella Love

     Well once again I have been slacking in the blog posts. On the plus side I have officially survived my fist two weeks of college. Let me tell you, I will never underestimate Chef's ever again. They work incredibly hard. After my first culinary class I thought that I was going to die. I'm not in school for culinary arts by the way...just in case any of you wanted to know... I'm actually in school for baking and pastry buuuuttt half of my classes are actually regular cooking classes. It's certainly a great learning experience though so I don't mind. Have you ever whisked mayonnaise by hand? Because I did in school this week and I highly DON'T recommend it...unless you enjoy the "my arm is going to fall off" felling. :D

      Anyway onto the baking of the week. This was actually 2 weeks ago I believe. I have the pleasure of being in a foodie club where my friend Kira posts 7 recipes and we all pick from one and make it ourselves. This week I actually had to make smore's cupcakes for my sister going away party...and they turned out AWESOME. I'm rambling again. Onto the muffin!!

 Nutella Stuffed Cinnamon Sugar Muffins 

Recipe addapted from sallysbakingaddiction.com

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temp

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

1&1/2 cup all purpose flour

1&1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

16 tsp Nutella

FOR THE TOPPING

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

3 tbsp unsalted butter

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 425F. Spray your muffin tin and set it aside. Once again I always use liners because its easier to clean and it looks nice.
2. In a medium bowl mix together your flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
3. In a large mixer bowl cream together you sugar and butter. Mix in your vanilla, milk and egg.
4.  Slowly and gently mix in your flour mixture until just combined. You don't want to over mix
5. Fill the bottom of your muffin tins with about 1 tbsp of mix. Then place 2 tsp of nutella on top of the mix. Top the nutella with the rest of your muffing mix. You should have about 8-9 muffins so do not freak out that it doesn't look like a lot of batter.
6. Place in the oven and bake for 5 minutes and then lower the oven temp to 350 and bake the rest of the way. 12-17 minutes.
7. Allow the muffins to cool for about 5 minutes before putting on the topping.
8. For the topping melt your butter in the microwave. In a bowl mix together the cinnamon and sugar. Brush the butter on top of each muffin and then dunk the top of the muffin into the cinnamon sugar mixture.

      That is all there is to it. It was a prefect little breakfast muffin and I hope those of you that look at it will be encouraged to try it. 


     This week once my school load is lightened I'll be practicing my cupcake skills paired with buttercream icing. I need to prefect it before I go and visit my Aunt Virginia who I haven't seen in years! She's a big buttercream lover so I don't want to let her down. Which means I will be putting buttercream on everything until it get it perfect!

Pumpkin Chip Muffins

This was not at all what I intended to back this week. I was actually planning on perfecting my red velvet cupcakes. Maybe I'll still get around to it but I'm not sure. I start school this week so I'm pretty sure my week is going to be very very busy. This whole school thing is actually what started the muffin light bulb in my head. I normally wake up every morning and make Mark breakfast before he goes to work since it's my job as house woman (that's the title I gave myself since we aren't married). Sooooo I thought I'd just make something that he can grab on his way out the door since I'll be gone an hour before he even needs to wake up.

I had good intentions at first....and then while I was at the grocery store I had this ridiculous craving for pumpkin....Luckily for me Mark actually likes pumpkin! Alright! Enough about my day and more about this tasty tasty cupcake

Pumpkin Chip Muffins
Yields: about 16 muffins


INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/8 tsp fine salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup nonfat milk
1/3 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
1/2 vegetable oil
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (you can use whatever chips you like...white...dark...milk...)

DIRECTIONS

1.) Preheat the oven to 400F. Line your muffin tin. You could just spray the pan with non stick spray if you'd like but I like liners. I think they're nice to look at.

2.) In a large bowl ( I used my stand mixer bowl) mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Set aside.

3.) In a medium size bowl mix together the eggs, milk, yogurt, vegetable oil and pumpkin puree.

4.) Mix together the wet and dry ingredients until they are nicely combined. Mix in half of the chocolate chips.

5.) Fill up your liners and pop those babies into the oven. It should take 15-20 minutes for them to finish up.

Enjoy (^_^)

Cookies N' Cream

Hello again! This weeks cupcake is as the title says. Cookies N' Cream. This is probably the easiest cupcake that I've made so far. This cupcake also seems to be my families favorite so far. Anyway, enough rambling here. Let me get to the cupcake.

Cookies N' Cream Cupcake
Yields: 12 cupcakes     Active Time: 25 mins      Total Time: 1 hr 55 mins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp fine salt
2 large eggs at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
12 sandwich cookies (I obviously used oreo's)

Directions

1.) Preheat your oven to 350F. Line your standard cupcake tin with cupcake liners. You're going to take your sandwich cookies now and separate the tops from the bottoms. One half will have the cream still attached to it. Take the half with the cream still attached and place them into the bottom of each cupcake liner.

2.) Take the other pieces of cookie and go ahead and chop those up in a food processor....and if you're like me and can't afford a nice food processor just put them in a plastic baggy and have some fun with a rolling pin.

3.) In a medium sized bowl mix together your flour, baking powder and salt. Set that aside.

4.) In a stand-mixer bowl (or just a regular large bowl if you don't have a mixer) beat together the sugar and the eggs until it's light and foamy.While beating this slowly add in the vanilla and the melted butter.

5.) Slow down your mixer and slowly start adding in the flour mixture. You're going to add it in three parts alternating between the flour and the milk. Starting and ending with the flour. Once that is all incorporated throw in your processed cookies until just combined.

6.) Go ahead and fill your cupcake tin and pop them in the oven. It should take about 20 minutes for them to bake. Half way through baking make sure to turn your tin so that you can insure that the cupcakes are evenly baked.

Cookies N' Cream Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients

2 sticks salted butter at room temperature
1/8 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups powdered sugar
8 sandwich cookies


Directions

1.) Throw your cookies (the whole cookie, not just tops or bottoms) into a food processor and blend them up until they are nice and fine. I once again didn't have a food processor which made my icing a little bit too chunky to pipe onto my cupcakes. It is still tasty if not piped.

2.) Mix together the butter, vanilla and cream until nice and smooth. Slowly add in your powdered sugar a little at a time.

3.) Once all that is nice and mixed together go ahead and throw in those delicious cookie crumbs and mix until combined.


That's all there is to it. Decorate your cupcakes however you'd like. I used mini sandwich cookies. I'm not sure what I'll be dabbling into next week but hopefully it is as delicious as this one turned out to be!