Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

It's one of my oldest friends birthdays tomorrow so we are indulging in our own version of afternoon tea, all handmade, before heading to the firework display at Shugborough Hall.

As my contribution I originally wanted to make Passionfruit Curd cupcakes after discovering some amazing curd at the Beverley Food Festival a few weeks ago. Alas, I felt that Passionfruit wasn't very in the spirt of Bonfire Night. Instead I made these peanut butter cookies.

The surprise is that hidden inside (or not so hidden on the few that I left in the oven for a minute too long) are little chunks of Mars bar that slowly melt but retain their nougat-y, caramel-y, chocolate-y goodness. The below picture has led to several recipe requests. As I blended a few recipes together (as my fridge is currently egg-less) I thought I'd share my version with you here. 

An Almost Grown-Up Christmas

As a child Christmas is very me, me, me but I am now 23 and, as my mother keeps telling me, this means I don't get the same amount of surprises as the little ones. Now I'm not bothered about amounts, I'm a quality over quantity kind of girl, but sadly Christmas usually means useless presents so this year I took charge and kindly requested a whole host of gifts from her. I was very clear, all I really wanted was some pyjama's, anything else would be a bonus, but I had listed a variety so that I wouldn't know what was coming. I thought this was a cunning plan and somehow, magically, even those who didn't have access to the gift gave me wonderfully thoughtful presents.

Some of my favourite presents, including a beautiful long chained gold bird necklace, a hand knitted headband 
and an Apple Magic Mouse to stop me getting RSI with my incessant trackpad use.

I loved spending time with my friends on our traditional Christmas Eve pub crawl, plus my family and my boyfriend. This is his first year out of university (he did Dentistry which is a 5 year course) and he didn't love his short 4 day break (that's very short when you're used to 2/3 weeks) but we crammed in seeing both of our families and the constant moving around felt very adult. Suddenly we weren't just sat in front of the television eating chocolate, we were in the car moving around and he was entertaining my five year old brother playing Halo on the XBox and competing over the noise of my family all talking at once. Seriously impressive if you take into account the fact my boyfriend is an only child who is not used to having lots of children around and my brother argues with everyone he plays with and even shoots those on his team.

The Cupcake Miracle/Peanut Butter Cupcake Recipe

I love cupcakes.  In fact, I love cake of any kind but unfortunately I am terrible at baking without supervision.  Oddly, I've been told this is because I follow the recipe too much... I think it's more I'm inpatient, rarely have every ingredient and the oven at home likes to burn everything on the right hand side.  I like to try to counteract the last aspect by turning things regularly but of course this means my cakes are usually flat as a pancake.

Today I decided to bake at my moms house.  I was armed with a good oven, all the ingredients and a peanut butter cupcake recipe that I was determined to follow to the letter... When I took them out of the oven they had risen, cooked to perfection and tasted divine.  It was a cupcake miracle.

My yummy cupcakes :) - I didn't say they looked professional, I said they baked perfectly.

I'm no Astral when it comes to decorating but I promise they're amazing!

As a baking retard if I can make this recipe I'm sure anyone can.  It's from the book Cupcakes and Muffins: A Collection of 200 Delicious Recipes, but I have shared it with you here so you can try right now.  The recipe is apparently for 16 but that must be for massive cupcakes... I got 21 so decided to do half chocolate and half frosted.  There was an absolute tonne of frosting left over.

Frosted Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 55 g/2 oz butter, softened, or soft margarine
• 225 g/8 oz soft light brown sugar
• 115 g/ 4 oz crunch peanut butter (I used smooth because that's what was in the cupboard.  They still tasted yummy but didn't have the crunch...obviously.)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten (Apparently I should have beaten by eggs before putting them in with everything else - I didn't.)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 225 g/ 8 oz plain flower
• 2 tsp baking powder

Frosting:

• 200 g/7 oz soft cream cheese (I used ricotta.)
• 25 g/1 oz butter, softened
• 225 g/8 oz icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas Mark 4.
2. Line two 12-hole bun tins with 16 paper cases.  (I used silicon cases and cooked in two batches.)
3. Place the butter, sugar and peanut butter in a bowl and beat together for 1-2 minutes, or until well mixed.
4. Gradually beat in the eggs, then add the vanilla extract.
5. Sift in the flour and baking powder, then fold them into the mixture, alternating with the milk.
6. Spoon the mixture into the cases.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until well risen and golden brown.  (15-20 minutes with my moms small cases and fan assisted oven.)

8. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
9. To make the frosting, place the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl and beat together until smooth.
10. Sift the icing sugar into the mixture, beat together until well mixed, then spread the frosting on the top of each cake.  (My mom has no sieve.  God knows why.  This of course meant I had to massively beat my frosting, and the more you beat the cream cheese the softer it gets.  This is why my icing is a lot runnier than the one in the book, so it was more pour than spread.  Still tastes amazing though!)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

The ingredients are exactly the same as for the cake above but all you need is chocolate spread (I used Nutella) instead of any frosting ingredients.

1. Follow the above method until step 5.

2. Spoon half the mixture into the paper cases then place about 1/2 a teaspoon of chocolate spread into the centre of each.

3. Carefully spoon the remaining mixture into the paper cases so that it completely encloses the chocolate spread.

4. Bake as before.

5. Cool and cover with more chocolate spread.

Voila :) both batches taste absolutely yummy.  The chocolate cupcakes are much stickier, with the frosted cupcakes coming across lighter even though they're the same cake.  The peanut butter makes the mix rather sticky and heavy but I promise they are divine.  If you give either recipe a go let me know!