chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.

My best friend Meagan was throwing a college graduation/23rd birthday party this past weekend, and I decided to follow through with her wish for chocolate cupcakes, but with a twist. I saw this recipe and knew that it was the one. I adapted it slightly to create my cupcakes, and added a little something on top so that the graduation aspect of the party would be represented.For the cake batter:
// 3/4 cups flour
// 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
// 1/2 cup light brown sugar
// 1/2 cup granulated sugar
// 1 tsp. baking powder
// 1/2 tsp. baking soda
// 1/4 tsp. salt
// 1/3 cup vegetable oil
// 1/3 cup milk
// 1 large egg
// 1/4 cup sour cream
// 1/3 cup hot water
// 1 tsp. vanilla extract
// 12 mini Reese's1// Preheat the oven to 350*.
2// In a mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, both sugars, cocoa powder, baking soda & powder, and salt), then add the vegetable oil, milk, egg, vanilla extract, and mix until combined. Add the hot water, then the sour cream.
3// Coat the bottom of each muffin tin with a little bit of batter, then place a mini Reese's in the center of each tin. Pour the rest of the batter over top of the Reese's until covered and filled about 3/4 of the way.
4// Bake the cupcakes for about 16 minutes, of until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs on it.
5// Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.
(Yields about 15 cupcakes)For the peanut buttercream frosting:
// 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
// 3 tbsp. heavy cream
// 1/2 cup (or 1 stick) butter
// 1/2 cup peanut butter
// 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
// 2 tbsp. sour cream1// whip the butter and peanut butter in a stand mixer until fluffy.
2// Blend in the vanilla, sour cream, and powdered sugar until combined, then add heavy cream as needed and continue to mix (final consistency should be fluffy and pale).To make the grad caps I dipped a mini Reese's in a dot of frosting and "glued" it to a fudge graham cookie. To harden the frosting I put them in the refrigerator for a half hour and they were good to go. I had them in the fridge up until serving because of all of the meltable chocolate, but an airtight container at room temperature probably would have been okay if all you had was the frosting on top. To be completely honest, after licking the random drips of batter and frosting while baking I could only stomach one bite at the party, but it was a pretty damn delicious bite.

#fitfam
#eatclean
#workforthatbody

(just kidding).