How do you know you’re becoming addicted to Blogging? Well, I can answer that question with a simple, “when it becomes the highlight of your day” :) It’s very sad, but I’ve been dying to write this Blog all day, not because it’s particularly interesting, but because it’s a food related Blog. Now why is that exciting? It’s exciting because in order to write this Blog, I actually had to do the baking and the thought of getting my bake-on has made this day of curly hair and history exams completely worth it!
I came across this recipe a few days ago and I’ve been dying to try it, so today after my History exam (more on that later, maybe) I bought a few ingredients and began the very slow process of making Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes – what a name, eh? If you’d like the original recipe I can send it to you, but I just did my own thing (I think it’s called improvising/being lazy) and they turned out really well :)
For the Cupcake part of the Cupcakes I just used a packet of Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake – they haven’t got the dense consistency of an actual Cupcake (or myself), they’re much lighter but they’re easy to make and the batter tastes really yummy – if you have a recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes I would say give that a go instead, but anyway...
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes
Make up the Betty Crocker Devil’s Food Cake – this part is ridiculously easy, you literally add water, oil and 3 eggs – voila, a calorie riddle cake with very little effort
Spoon one tablespoon of batter into a cupcake case
Place a Reeses Cup on top of the batter
Top with another spoonful of batter and place in the oven
The original recipe says to bake at 350F for 15-20 minutes, but I baked them at 150C for 14 minutes – oddly specific I know – I really recommend putting one batch in, seeing how they come out and then putting the second set in – that way you won’t ruin them all, or maybe you’re not as challenged as I am, in that case, let’s move on...
When the cupcakes are done, leave them to completely cool before frosting
Now here comes the fun part... Peanut Butter Frosting :)
1 Cup of Peanut Butter (for us regular people that’s 260g – you can use chunky or smooth, I stuck to smooth and it worked out really well)
½ Cup of Butter at room temperature (again, that’s 115g)
2 Cups of Powdered Sugar (also known as Icing Sugar – 220g)
3-4 Tablespoons of milk or cream
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla extract/flavouring
Clearly the best part of this recipe is the mixing – remember to use one of those electric whisk thingys, I’m pretty sure it would be physically impossible without one, but anyway... Combine the peanut butter and butter in a large bowl, mixing together until they’re light and fluffy.
Stop the mixer and then take it out – trying to do this without turning it off will result in a messy kitchen and an unhappy mother :) Add the icing sugar, 3 tablespoons of milk/cream and the vanilla extract/flavouring. Start the mixing slowly (brrrrrrrrr – that’s the sound of the whisk) and gradually increase the speed until the mixture is smooth and creamy. If the frosting is too thick you can add a tablespoon of milk/cream – make sure you thoroughly test this mixture. Just to check. Ya know?
So yes, cupcake mix + Reeses Peanut Butter Cup+ more cupcake mix + oven + frosting = yummy! Obviously this recipe contains nuts, so don’t make it if that will, well, kill you. Also, they are really yummy, but they are soooooo sweet and I wouldn’t recommend them unless you really, really like peanut butter. Thankfully I enjoy ridiculously sweet things that contain vast amounts of peanut butter :)
These, along with Liam Neeson in Taken, were the perfect end to an otherwise rubbish day. The day started well, my hair was b-e-a-utiful and then I walked to the train station. Quickly. This was a bad move – I was all hot and my hair went all wavy. Bad times. I eventually made it to the Library, only to find that there were no seats. Seriously QUB, what’s that all about? Also, would it kill you to crack a windy? The third FLO was ridiculously warm – made even hotter when Mr. Rory Kelleher came up for a visit, or two ;) The lovely Becca Patterson was also in the vicinity, with her excellent work ethic and texts that never fail to brighten my day :) I actually love the library – it is the place to be during exams, literally all the cool people are in the library, pretending to revise! After chillin’ in the library I bought some pens (they usually come in handy during exams) and headed over to take the exam. Well. What an epic fail that was. I can’t even think about that exam without feeling sick, it was just so terrible. My structure was appalling and it was as if I knew nothing about the subject, which is so far from the truth – I literally memorised everything that happened in America from 1861 to 1949... That’s a lot of stuff. Unfortunately knowing a bunch of dates isn’t much use when you don’t know anything about what happened on these dates. Ahh well, it’s just an exam :) After a sneaky Boojum with the Surf Clubbers I headed back to Bangor and began baking. My mum was cooking/baking a whole bunch of stuff for school tomorrow, so we were just chillin’ in the kitchen, listening to some Bob Dylan! For now life is good, or should I say sweet, in reference to the cupcakes? Nah, I think I’ll stick with good :)
xx
