Peanut Butter Cinnamon Goodness in a Cup of Cake

Current Mood: Hopeful and keeping my fingers crossed!
Current Song: Justin Bieber- Beauty and a Beat

Wait what!? Cup of cake you say? I made da bomb diggity cupcakes Sunday night for two birthdays that we had here in the office. Yes, here in the office...my favorite time of day to blog is during the later morning hours of the work day. Preferably Tuesdays when we're less busy. Yup.

Well it was Martin's 25th birthday yesterday and Jim's (our CFO) today. I think he's 36. Who knows. Jim basically likes NOTHING. He doesn't like chocolate...most sweets...or anything delicious to put it simply. He eats burgers for breakfast and a huge bag of salsa chips for lunch. Anyways...the ONLY sweet thing he likes is peanut butter. In fact, he LOVES peanut butter. But not so much Reese's because he doesn't like chocolate. SO DIFFICULT! On the other hand, Martin will eat any of my treats that I make.

I took myself back in time to one of the very first months of my blog when I randomly made peanut butter cupcakes. I got the recipe off allrecipes.com but for some reason, I can't find it anymore on there. The cupcakes feature a hint of cinnamon (only a 1/4 tsp.) which you could barely taste the first time I made these. I thought the flavors of peanut butter and cinnamon together was very odd at first, but it is LITRALLY the best combo ever. Aside from chocolate and peanut butter of course.

The recipe that I use for these cupcakes includes a peanut butter frosting. It's not a butter cream at all. It went something like...1/3 c. peanut butter...2 c. powdered sugar...some honey...vanilla extract....and some milk. It was more like a thicker, sweeter peanut butter spread. It was very good, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to change it around this time! Here is what they looked like the first time I made them for my blog last May:

I kept the recipe the same except I added more cinnamon to the batter. I put a 1/2 tsp. instead of just 1/4. This made a HUGE difference in a positive way! I really like that this recipe uses brown sugar instead of regular sugar.

Did you know that brown sugar is just granulated sugar and molasses? Makes recipes a bit sweeter :)

Random thought/tip: When a cupcake recipe tells you to bake them for an amount of time HIGHER than 20 minutes...don't do it. Simple as that. I start with 18 minutes all the time if I come across a recipe like this. This recipe told me to bake them for 23-25 minutes or something ridiculous like that. I started at 18 and they were done JUST RIGHT at that time! For cupcake minis, I start at 10 minutes.

I made up my own peanut butter butter cream frosting this time around. Here's the recipe I used to PIPE 18 cupcakes.

1/3 c. of peanut butter (give or take)--you can really add it based on what you like
1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 c. confectioner's sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon to taste (optional)

Blend the butter and peanut butter for about 5 minutes. You want the butter to relieve all of it's chunks. This takes a while. But the longer you whip it/blend it, the flufflier your icing is! Add the sugar slowly. Add the vanilla and cinnamon to taste.

This is THE BEST icing recipe ever. One coworker said the frosting tasted like PB fudge...another said it's her favorite frosting yet (and I've baked A LOT for work!)...2 others said these cupcakes were their favorite.

ORDER THESE TODAY!!