Peanut Butter Birthday Cupcakes

For my hubby's birthday last year, I sent these bad boys in to work with him. Let me tell you, they were a hit!

They were inspired by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen Cupcake Cupcake Toppers. I thought the peanut butter from the PB Cups should be carried through the whole cupcake, though.

 

Recipe:

 

Chocolate Cupcake:

1 box Betty Crocker Devil's Food Cake Mix

Ingredients called for on box

1/2 C Sour Cream

1 small (3.4 oz) box chocolate pudding mix

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare cupcake tins by lining them with cupcake wrappers.

 

Mix all ingredients together, just until combined. Fill cupcake tins about 2/3 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Place pans on wire rack to cool for 10 minutes before removing cupcakes from pans.

 

While cupcakes cool, prepare peanut butter frosting.

 

Frosting:

1/2 C butter

1/2 C peanut butter

1 lb powdered sugar

1-3 tbsp. heavy whipping cream

 

Cream together butter and peanut butter. Slowly add powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add heavy whipping cream, 1 tbsp. at a time, until desired consistency is reached.

 

Frost cupcakes and add sprinkles, if desired. Unwrap 24 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (or more, if batter yielded extra cupcakes; mine often does). Add small swirl of frosting to each PB cup, then place on top of a frosted cupcake.

Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

I recently took a vacation to visit all my family back home in AZ. It was a wonderful trip, and I loved seeing everyone, but sometimes my family can be a little stressful. And normally when I'm stressed, I bake. But I couldn't, because I was staying with family; I didn't really feel like I could just commandeer my in-laws' kitchen. So once I got back to my own home, one of the first things I did was whip up these bad boys. They are the perfect combination of fudgy brownie and salty peanut butter.

They are also super easy to make. Simply bake your favorite brownies in a mini muffin tin. I used Duncan Hines box mix. Follow the instructions on the back of the box, and bake for 16 minutes. For half of the brownie bites, I placed half of a Hershey's dark chocolate candy on top immediately after removing the brownies from the oven. This allowed the heat of the brownies to melt the chocolate a bit. For the other half, I stirred in peanut butter chocolate chips. I don't know if you've seen them in the store, but they are a fun swirl chip, half peanut butter, half chocolate. You could also just leave the brownies plain, if that's your preference. I thought both versions I tried turned out super tasty.

While your brownies are cooling, whip up the peanut butter frosting. Beat together 1/2 cup softened butter with 2/3 cup peanut butter. Then, slowly add in 1 cup powdered sugar. Simply pipe that onto your brownies, top with a mini peanut butter cup, and you are good to go! Find a friend to share these with, or gorge yourself on them. Believe me, once you eat one, it's hard to stop.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Popcorn

Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Popcorn.

Only three ingredients to make one of the most addicting snacks you will ever eat. How can you beat that?

Want to know how to make it? It couldn't be simpler.

First, melt 1 ½ cups of milk chocolate. I used chocolate almond bark because it is what I had on hand, but regular chocolate chips would work just as well. You could also use semi-sweet or a blend of milk and semi-sweet chips depending on how sweet you want it.

Next, stir in a big spoonful of peanut butter, roughly ½ cup. Stir until it is all incorporated into the chocolate.

Pour the chocolate mixture over 1 bag of popped popcorn*. It can be a little hard to stir; to make it easier, use a bowl that is bigger than the amount of popcorn you have. This way you don’t have to worry about popcorn spilling out when you stir.

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Once the chocolate mixture is evenly distributed, spread the popcorn out onto the cookie sheet and allow the chocolate to set up so it is no longer melted, about an hour. If you need to set it up faster, you can put it in the freezer for 15-20 minutes. Once it is all set up, break it up into chunks and enjoy.

For a fun way to serve this, you can put it into cupcake liners (shown above), or package it up into bags and give it away. It would make a great Christmas or Holiday gift that is delicious, simple, and inexpensive; perfect for this stressful time of the year.

*For the popcorn, you can either pop your own if you have a popcorn popper, or if you are like me, you can just buy Newman’s Own Organic Popcorn. I bought it at Walmart, so it’s easy to find, and there is no butter or salt added, so it is great for things like this.