Oh Martha.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes. Sounds good, right?

So yesterday my husband, Lito, was like, Heeyyy.... you haven't made cupcakes for a while...and the guys at work have heard a lot about how awesome they are.... The gauntlet was thrown. Cupcakes had to be made. So I sent a list of possible cupcake flavors I'd like to try, including PBChocolate, and that, my friends is what I made.

I returned to my perfect-bound Martha Stewart cookbook and flipped through to the loveliest picture of warm, perfect cupcakes. And I made the recipe. Here they are with frosting:

Here they are without frosting (The cookbook recommends NO frosting. Harumph.)

Lito and I each tried one without frosting and decided that either chocolate or peanut butter frosting was completely necessary for these cupcakes. The flavor of the peanut butter swirls and the chocolate cake was SPOT ON. This recipe got it right on. But once again the cupcakes were dry and there was a lot more batter than the recipe says it yields. I can get over the second part. But the dryness is so irritating. My instinct with these cuppies was to pull them out of the oven at 30 minutes, but I checked them and they seemed a little wet, so I left them in for the recommended 40 mins. Should have gone with my gut, because I think these tiny cakes would be really good if they were even a little undercooked.

Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter Filling. Recipe provided by Martha. Remixed my yours truly.

Here's what you need:

2/3 C all purpose flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut in pieces

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate (I use chocolate chips for easy melting)

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate (I use the handy little boxes of 1 oz cubes you can get at the grocery store)

3/4 C granulated sugar

3 large eggs

2 t pure vanilla extract

Peanut Butter Filling (wait for it....wait for it....)

Peanut butter filling:

4 T butter, melted

1/2 C powdered sugar

1/4 t salt

1 t vanilla extract

Mix it all up in a bowl and then dip your finger in. It's delish.

Here's what you do:

Preheat your oven, and put some paper cups in your muffin tin. I think you can probably get about 18 cupcakes out of this recipe if you're careful.

Use a whisk to mix the flour, baking powder and salt. Then put the butter and chocolates into a microwave-safe bowl and heat for about 45 seconds on high. The chocolate will get pretty melty. Pull it out of the microwave and stir it until everything is melty. Like this:

Mmmmm. Yeah.

Then transfer it into the bowl of your mixer, or pop our your hand mixer. I really just wanted to take a picture of my mixer. So pretty.

Add the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Add the eggs and vanilla, then the flour mixture.

Spoon alternating tablespoons of the chocolate batter and the peanut butter filling until you have a cupcake that looks interesting. Like this:

Then use a toothpick or something (I used a chopstick) to swirl the two flavors together. Bake at 325 for 30 mins. Write back and let me know how they turn out for you.

<3

k