Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream icing and PB drizzle

I've been neglecting this blog. Truth be told I haven't been in much of a baking/cooking/blogging sort of mood. This week I made a conscious effort to try to snap myself out of it. I made a nice pork chop dish, roasted a chicken and root vegetables, made heart shaped sour cream and cheddar biscuits. They all turned out well but the thing that was missing was dessert.

For our saturday project I decided Sierra and I would make peanut butter stuffed cupcakes with peanut buttercream icing. As it turned out, we didn't have enough peanut butter to make the icing and I was not about to go out in the freezing rain to get more so I improvised and made a chocolate butter cream and drizzled the last of the peanut butter over the tops of the cakes.

You can tell which of them Sierra decorated above because she is obsessed with those little white sprinkles. At any rate I like how these turned out so I decided to share the recipe with you all. Enjoy!

First prepare the filling: In bowl, with mixer on medium speed, mix confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, 2 tablespoons butter, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla until blended. Shape mixture into 24 balls using heaping measuring teaspoons. (Balls will be sticky and don't need to be perfectly shaped.) Place balls on waxed paper-lined cookie sheet; set aside.

Next prepare the cupcakes. I use Martha Stuarts one bowl cupcake recipe but if you have a chocolate cupcake recipe you really like use that one. Especially if it's a bit thick. Martha's is tasty but very liquid so the peanut butter filling can sink to the bottom. It didn't end up being a problem for us but I might experiment with different cupcake recipes if I make these again.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups sugar

2 1/2 tsps. baking soda

1 1/4 tsps. baking powder

1 1/4 tsps. salt

2 large whole eggs, plus 1 large YOLK

1 1/4 cups milk

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsps. vegetable oil

1 1/4 tsps. vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups warm water

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line your muffin pans with paper liners or spray your cake pans with cooking spray.

Sift together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Add the eggs and yolk, milk, oil, vanilla and water, and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until smooth and combined (about 3 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Fill each cup up 1/3 of the way. Put a peanut butter ball in each and then fill up another 1/3 of the way.

Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until a knife/toothpick inserted in the middle, comes out clean. My cupcakes took about 25 minutes.

Chocolate ButterCream Icing

• 1 cup butter (no substitutes), softened
• 4-1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1-1/4 cups baking cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar, cocoa and vanilla. Add enough milk until frosting reaches spreading consistency.

When cupcakes have cooled completely frost them obviously ;) As for the drizzle I just melted peanut butter and thinned it with a bit of oil.

Lemon Cheese Pie with Blueberry Compote

Ok so it's not dinner, but it can certainly be for after dinner! Right?

Scott and I went out to dinner a few nights ago and the dessert was Lemon Cheese Pie with Blueberry Compote. When I took the first bite it reminded me of a pie my Grandmother used to make. I saw her today and asked her about it. It's the most remarkably easy dessert I think i've ever made.


Grammy's Lemon Cheese Pie (with Tara's blueberry compote)

1 Package Cream Cheese
1 Can Eagle Brand Condensed Milk
1/3 cup Lemon Juice
1 Graham Cracker Crust

Compote
2 1/2 cups blueberries
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup water

Mix Cream Cheese & Condensed Milk together with a hand mixer until almost smooth. Add lemon juice and continue mixing until all of the lumps are out.
Pour into Crust
Let set in fridge for a few hours

Compote
Heat Blueberries, sugar and water in a sauce pan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and then simmer until blueberries start to pop. Remove from stove.

I spoon the compote over each piece as it's served. Grammy uses that pie filling in the can and she puts it all over the top and it seems to hold up fine.

Enjoy!