Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Icing

It has been quite a while since we made these peanut butter cupcakes to take to Bailey's parents' house but we were cleaning out the camera today and found these yummy photos and thought better late than never!

These cupcakes actually turned out quite unusual. We had never really used peanut butter in cooking at all before we made these and it actually made Bailey start liking peanut butter! Which can only be a good thing, seeing as peanut butter is ace.

The cupcakes tasted very stodgy with a nice flavour mix of sweet and savoury. They are also quite rich and chewy because of the brown sugar. I would say they are more of an adult type of cupcake. Making them is so tempting too, your whole house starts to smell of delicious peanut butter - an absolute treat.

Recipe (makes 20 large cupcakes):

75g unsalted butter
130g smooth peanut butter
190g soft dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
60ml semi-skimmed milk

For the icing:
60ml double cream
30g unsalted butter
300g milk chocolate
Half a teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C. Cream the butter, peanut butter and sugar together in a bowl and take in those amazing smells.

Gradually add the eggs and vanilla extract, stirring in all the time. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Then get your milk into a measuring jug ready to pour in. Add one third of the flour mixture and stir, before adding one third of the milk and stirring. Repeat this process until everything is nicely mixed in.

Now spoon the cake mixture into some large cupcake cases and put into the oven.

Bake in the oven until the cakes are crispy on top and golden. By this time your house will be smelling even more amazing and you will be just about ready to have some kind of peanut butter party where you just dunk your face into a vat of the stuff.

Once the cakes have cooled it's time for the icing. Put the butter and double cream in a saucepan over a low heat, stirring continuously. Once the butter has melted, remove from the heat and add the chocolate which should melt nicely in the pan. Leave to cool for a little while before icing the cakes.

Once we had iced the cakes we covered them in some fudge chunks that we snapped up in Morrison's as well as some chopped nuts for extra crunch.

Seriously tasty!