,Have been keeping up with the cupcake club thread on cakecentral.com. Could not resist trying this cupcake recipe that was posted to critique. The idea of the “club” for everybody to try a posted recipe for a variety of cupcake & report back on their results. If someone thinks they can improve the recipe, they bake it again with their changes. Then they report back on the forum how well the changes worked. It’s an extremely fascinating thread as it allows for a serious discussion of the merits & faults of a recipe. The recipe used is chosen by the poster & they pick out the time frame before the next recipe is posted & who the next poster will be. The fourth recipe chosen was the first one I had tried. I hadn’t found the thread earlier so will have to go back & try the carrot cake recipe that was posted. The recipe I used was for Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes and it was chosen by Jenmac75. Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes Recipe courtesy Paula Deen Yields 2 dozen 1 (18 1/2-ounce) package chewy fudge brownie mix (recommended: Duncan Hines) 1 (12-ounce) package peanut butter chips or 24 miniature peanut butter cups Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 24 regular muffin cups with paper cupcake liners.
A Miniature Reese
Prepare the brownie mix according to package directions for cake-like brownies. Fill the cups half full with brownie batter. Place about 1 tablespoon peanut butter chips in the center of the batter, or press 1 peanut butter cup into the batter in each muffin cup until the batter meets the top edge of the peanut butter cup. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the cupcakes are set. When they can be handled safely, remove them from the muffin tins and let cool completely on wire racks. Store in an airtight container. Chocolate Ganache 1 by cheftaz 8 oz (240ml) cream 1 tbls butter (optional but makes it stay really shiny even after refrigerating) 1 oz sugar 12 oz (340 g) semi-sweet chocolate Break chocolate into 1/2 oz pieces and place in stainless steel bowl. Heat cream, butter and sugar to boiling. Pour over chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir from center out until smooth. After refrigerating 1 hour then fill your piping bag. Or use to ice your cake by pouring or spreading (allow to cool to room temp first)
The cupcakes now have their ganache topping & decorative pieces of Peanut Butter cups.
I’m also going to add crumbled peanut butter cups on top of the ganache for a little decoration! As you can see, this is a very simple recipe. Do not be fooled by the simplicity of it. These cupcakes are fabulous. They would make a wonderful holiday treat or the perfect end to a simple meal. Actually, they make a great snack also. Had some overripe bananas on the kitchen counter so I decided to also make banana cupcakes. While the banana cupcakes baked, I decided I wanted to try playing with filled cupcakes. I felt a good choice of filling for this flavor of cupcake would be vanilla so I pulled a package of vanilla pudding out & mixed it up. Then the fun started.
I won!! Filling is now in the banana cupcakes.
I had never made filled cupcakes before so I did some research on the internet. The directions I found were step by step & looked simple enough so I thought I was set. Wrong! The directions I found called for snipping a hole in the corner of a baggie, sliding a round tip in it, & filling the baggie with the filling mix. Simple enough, right? Actually this part worked quite well. Maybe I’m just not co-ordinated enough, but I could not get the tip to just ease into the top of the cupcake. All the tip did was bounce off. Determined not to be defeated, I used my other hand to force the tip into the cupcake & proceeded to gently squeeze the baggie as the directions said. Oops! Pudding exploded out of a hole that I had NOT cut into another corner of the baggie. Then when I tried to carefully withdraw the tip from the top of the cupcake, the tip retreated into the pudding instead of staying snugly in the cut corner. Ok, it was obvious a plan B was needed. Not sure why the directions hadn’t sensibly directed me to use a nice decorating bag. Pulled a 10 inch bag out of my cake supplies & fitted a #7 tip on it. Filled the bag with vanilla pudding & tried again. Much better. Took a bit of trial & effort to get the hang of how much filling to insert, but it didn’t take long. This method was much more satisfactory. Filled the cupcakes in a very short time. Frosted them with the buttercream icing I had made using some of the vanilla pudding to flavor it with & they were done.
Here's a closeup of the Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes.
Frosted & filled banana cupcakes.
Tags: bake, banana cupcakes, buttercream icing, cakecentral.com, chocolate ganache, cupcake club, filling, Paula Deen, peanut butter brownie cupcakes, peanut butter cups, recipe, vanilla pudding