Posts tagged ‘peanut butter’

Nov 11

Chocolate, PB, Toffee, Bacon Cupcakes

Wow, the title of this post is a mouthful! If you can think of an easier name for these cupcakes, just let me know! These cupcakes were created for November’s Cupcake Hero challenge ingredient, peanut butter. I’ve already entered one cupcake into the competition this month, but I just love peanut butter so there was no way I could only enter just one.

My second entry is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate chips and finely chopped crispy bacon baked inside. It is frosted with peanut butter frosting, sprinkled with finely chopped toffee and topped off with a square of crispy bacon.

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Nov 2

15 Comments

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

This month’s theme ingredient for Cupcake Hero is peanut butter. Peanut butter is one of my favorite foods and a definite staple in our kitchen cabinets. I had a couple of ideas for a peanut butter-themed cupcake and this post will show you my first one, the chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake. I realize that the chocolate and peanut butter combination will probably be quite popular in the competition, but they just taste so great together that I figure that one can’t have enough chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes! I’m not sure if I’ll get around to my second idea, as we’re preparing to move overseas at the end of the month so we’ll be quite busy.

It might come as no surprise that the inspiration for my chocolate peanut butter cup cupcake came from Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, one of my favorite foods in the candy aisle.

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My peanut butter cupcake is covering himself in a chocolate peanut butter shell that also holds a pool of creamy peanut butter in the bottom. The cupcake is double-coated with chocolate ganache and a little peanut sits on top. Read more

Oct 23

10 Comments

Jumbo Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you’re a lover of chocolate chip cookies, like I am, then you probably have your favorite recipe and you may even remember when and where you tasted the perfect chocolate chip cookie. For me, my favorite recipe is Cook’s Illustrated’s perfect chocolate chip cookies and I do indeed remember where I tasted my all-time favorite chocolate chip cookie, although I don’t exactly remember when.

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Jul 22

4 Comments

Peanut Butter & Nutella Sandwich Cookies

This is just a very short post about combining two of my favorite spreads – peanut butter and Nutella. If you’re a frequent visitor, or if you just have a look through the archives, you’ll see that I’ve tried to combine these two spreads a couple of times in cookies, my favorite one having been the peanut butter cookies with swirls of Nutella.

I have a new favorite now, though. It’s the peanut butter sandwich cookie filled with plain Nutella.

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The directions are simple. Bake your favorite peanut butter cookies (in my case I used this flourless peanut butter cookie recipe), take two of the cookies, spread plain Nutella on one cookie and top it with the other cookie. Then eat!

These flourless peanut butter cookies are actually quite delicate, so it took some gentle spreading maneuvers with the Nutella to not break the cookie. But these are, by far, my favorite peanut butter cookies so I had to use them!

Jul 8

20 Comments

Peanut Butter Cupcakes And Nutella Cupcakes

This is going to be a 2-in-1 cupcake post! I was going to post a recipe for mixed berry tea, but quite a few people have expressed interest in both of these cupcakes, so I decided I’d go ahead and post the recipes for them instead.

The first cupcakes I’d like to absolutely rave about are these peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate glaze from I Heart Cuppycakes.

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These are amazing! I’ve been reluctant to make peanut butter cupcakes because I thought that the peanut butter might make the cake heavy or dense. But these cupcakes are so incredibly moist and soft and so full of rich peanut butter flavor! I was blown away, this is one awesome cupcake!

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This will definitely not be the last time I make these. If you love peanut butter and chocolate, I highly recommend you bake a batch of these right now! And make sure you have a tall glass of milk to go with them!

Now for the second cupcake. The peanut butter cupcakes got me thinking about Nutella cupcakes. Nutella can often be substituted for peanut butter in recipes, so I decided to give it a go with these cupcakes. I used the same amount of Nutella, but I did decrease the sugar by about 1/4 cup because Nutella is much sweeter than peanut butter. I did everything else the same as for the peanut butter cupcakes.

What I found was that the Nutella cupcakes sank slightly in the middle when they were done baking. They seemed to rise higher as well, so next time I wouldn’t use a full 1/4 cup of batter in each liner; my Nutella cupcakes overflowed a little bit!

But, the cake did taste of Nutella and still came out very moist and soft.

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I wasn’t sure of the type of frosting to use on Nutella cupcakes. I didn’t really want to use more Nutella in case it ended up being a bit too much. A friend suggested marshmallow frosting, which sounded like a winning combination! I guess sort of like a fluffernutter cupcake, only with Nutella instead of peanut butter!

To finish off the Nutella cupcake, I spooned a dollop (or about a teaspoon) of fresh Nutella into the middle of the top of the cupcake and frosted them with marshmallowy Swiss meringue from the queen of Swiss meringues at How To Eat A Cupcake. This frosting is definitely a keeper, it was fantastic!

The Nutella cupcake is quite sweet, but a flavor combination I haven’t yet experienced. Next time I probably wouldn’t use so much frosting on each cupcake, but instead just spread a light layer on top.

What kind of frosting would you like on a Nutella cupcake, just out of curiosity?

Jun 16

6 Comments

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I really have been in a pancake mood lately. I really liked my chocolate chip pancakes and wanted to make them again, but I thought I’d do something different this time – make peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes!

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The peanut butter pancake recipe comes from Sunny Anderson; I just added the chocolate chips myself. I made the batter, dropped the batter into the frying pan, and then sprinkled about one teaspoon of mini chocolate chips on the batter in the frying pan.

The blackberry syrup, or even any other flavor of berry syrup, to accompany the peanut butter pancakes would have been fantastic, but I had no berries at the time and just used maple syrup.

May 6

4 Comments

Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies

This recipe for peanut butter toffee cookies was recently a Cookie of the Day at the Martha Stewart website. I’ve been interested in toffee lately, so I thought that this recipe might be a good way to incorporate some toffee into my baking.

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I used 2 Hershey’s brand Heath bars for this recipe, just the regular 1.4-ounce size you can find in the grocery store’s checkout lane.

I contemplated on using a different peanut butter cookie base, one that I knew and loved, but decided I’d go ahead with the one in the recipe. A different cookie recipe could definitely be used, as long as the cookie will be thick enough to distribute and hold the toffee pieces nicely (i.e. not a thin cookie).

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I got exactly 24 cookies. They’re pretty good, although as I suspected, I’m not totally fond of the peanut butter cookie itself. It’s a slightly crunchier sort of cookie with softer insides; I think the crunch of the toffee goes well with the crunchiness of the cookie, though.

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I really do like the idea of toffee pieces in cookies now, and I suspect I’ll be making different varieties of cookies with toffee in the future. :)

Apr 22

22 Comments

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

I was super excited when I saw Joy The Baker’s recent post on flourless peanut butter cookies because these cookies are made without flour (as the name would suggest!) and also without butter (in my previous post I noted that I’m out of butter!). The cookies require only four ingredients, and they bake up soft and chewy.

I’m so impressed with these cookies and am thankful to Joy for posting the recipe. If you’re short on staple baking ingredients (such as flour, butter or vanilla, etc.) and in need of a super quick sweet treat, I highly recommend these little gems.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Adapted from Joy The Baker & The Gourmet Cookbook

Ingredients
1 cup all-natural chunky or smooth peanut butter
1 cup sugar (1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar)
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet with butter and set aside. In a mixer combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. Roll into walnut sized balls and create a cris-cross pattern with a fork. If you’d like, add a few chocolate pieces to the top of the cookies. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for two minutes, then transfer to… your mouth.

Apr 7

8 Comments

Elvis Presley's Fried Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich

I hadn’t planned on making this sandwich, but when I was browsing through Nigella Lawson‘s newly designed website, I found the recipe for Elvis Presley’s fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. It reminded me that it was always something I wanted to try but hadn’t gotten around to yet.

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I’ve had peanut butter and banana together before, and in a regular unfried sandwich as well. But it tasted quite different fried and warm. I can’t say it’ll be a regularly made sandwich in our house, but at least I’ve finally tried it!

Apr 2

32 Comments

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

I’ve always wanted to make my own chocolate and peanut butter cups. The recipes are so easy, I’m not sure why I’ve never gotten around to it until now.

They really took no time at all, in nearly 30 minutes I was already sinking my teeth into these oh-so-rich peanut butter cups.

I looked at a few recipes and skipped on most of them. Some of them used shortening, or called for ingredients I didn’t have. I used the recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel; they looked like the perfect ones.

My notes: I took the advice from Have Cake, Will Travel and added 2 tablespoons of peanut butter to the melted chocolate; I did not add extra salt; I melted the chocolate in a heavy-bottom saucepan rather than the microwave; I used regular sized cupcake liners, not minis, so mine are closer to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups size; I used the freezer instead of the refrigerator to set up the chocolate on the bottom.

They are so delicious. They are better and richer than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Keep these stored in the refrigerator; they melt quickly.

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Due to the continued popularity of this post, I am going to finally post the recipe here instead of only linking to it! If you want to make these vegan, click through to the original recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel – link is below. If you want to make these mini, try adapting the recipe for a mini cupcake tin (I think I’ll do this the next time I make these).

If you like this recipe, be sure to check out my “gourmet” salted chocolate peanut butter cups, using Lindt’s sea salt chocolate bar!

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Adapted from Have Cake, Will Travel
Makes 12

Ingredients:
*For the chocolate
1 1/2 cups (273g) chopped semisweet chocolate
2 tablespoons (32g) peanut butter
Pinch salt

*For the filling
12 tablespoons (or 3/4 cup) (192g) peanut butter
1/3 cup (64g) light brown sugar or powdered sugar
2 tablespoons (10g) graham cracker crumbs, optional
Pinch salt

Method
Prepare a standard muffin tin with 12 paper liners.

Combine chocolate, peanut butter and salt in a heavy-based saucepan over very low heat, or use a double-boiler, to melt the chocolate. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.

Place 2 teaspoons melted chocolate in each cupcake liner and carefully spread it with the back of a spoon at the bottom and only 1/4 of the way up the liner. Repeat with all 12 liners.

Place the chocolate-covered liners onto a plate in the fridge to firm up, for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Stir together peanut butter, sugar, optional crumbs, and salt.

The chocolate should be hard by now, so divide peanut butter paste into all 12 liners, about 1 heaping tablespoon (20g) per liner, pressing down gently to make sure the paste goes everywhere. Place in fridge to firm up, for about 20 minutes.

Top with 2 teaspoons melted chocolate, spreading carefully so that none of the peanut butter can be seen.

Let cups firm up in fridge for at least one hour before enjoying. Store in fridge or freezer.

Mar 16

5 Comments

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

This is a cookie for the peanut butter lover. It was just a touch too much peanut butter in one bite for me, but I will admit that these cookies are very tasty. And very full of peanut butter.

I originally saw the recipe for peanut butter sandwich cookies in the new The Taste of Home Cookbook. I did not use the recipe for the cookies (because it called for butter-flavored shortening, which I don’t have any of because I don’t like shortening), but I did use the recipe for the filling.

The old-fashioned peanut butter cookie recipe comes from A Chow Life, who is a self-confessed peanut butter lover. I divided the recipe in half and ended up with 16 sandwich cookies.

The filling recipe… I also cut this recipe in half and ended up with enough filling to fill the 16 sandwich cookies, plus two or three tablespoons extra. I’m posting the full recipe here.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie Filling
Adapted from The Taste of Home Cookbook

Ingredients
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 -6 tablespoons milk

Method
In a large mixing bowl, beat the peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract and enough milk to achieve spreading consistency. Spread filling on half of the cookies and top with another cookie.

Note, I’m keeping my sandwich cookies refrigerated because of the milk in the filling.