The Buttercream Kitten

Know what that is? Not shredded cheese or shag carpet. That's a picture of my peanut butter buttercream frosting from my most recent cake, a kitten. I just want to lick my screen. I've loved frosting since I was a wee tot. My mom always made homemade birthday cakes with delicious homemade icing for as long as I can remember. I grew up thinking everyone's mom made their own birthday cakes and all frosting was delicious buttercream. The first time I tasted store bought birthday cake with its whipped, sweet frosting the notion I would make my own cakes was sealed. I've never taken a class to do cakes. Instead the first time I wanted to try my hand at cake baking and decorating I just called my mom. She came over to my house and walked me through her recipe for frosting, baking a cake and then how to pipe on frosting...all for a Darth Vader cake for my coworkers on the eve of the first Star Wars prequel being released. My first cake was so much better than Jar Jar Binks.

My mom gave me her old few Wilton cake pans and I've added to them through the years; I now have over 50 shaped pans. This is just a portion of my stash hanging in the basement.

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Chocolate-Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Hearts

I love frosting. I can't throw out leftover icing from a delicious cake I made. Currently there was a container of scrumptious chocolate-peanut butter butter cream from my man's birthday cake in the refrigerator begging for new life.

It was reborn inside Valentine chocolates!

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Mini Nutter Butter Cupcakes

Yesterday was my man's birthday. I had leftover cake batter after putting his birthday cake in the oven. Not enough to make cupcakes but just enough to make a few mini cupcakes.

I also had a bag of mini Nutter Butters in the pantry.

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Ham Solo in CandyBaronite

I'm a fifteen year vegetarian married to a bacon loving omnivore. This doesn't cause conflict since he genuinely loves eating good vegetarian meals and I also indulge the meat beast within him from occasion. One such occasion of indulgence bore Ham Solo in CandyBaronite!

I was initially just considering dipping bacon in chocolate to make Christmas goodies.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part Three, Peanut Butter Cupcake with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

I've got everything zooming along perfectly with the Peanut Butter Blossom Cupcakes for my friend. And I'm sure that one flavor cupcake would be enough to make her smile. But I just keep thinking I should do two different kinds. I ponder what else she likes other than peanut butter and I land on pumpkin. Hmmmm. I'm not a pumpkin fan in sweets but I think peanut butter and pumpkin could work together; I put them in a tasty soup why not a cupcake.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part Two, PB Blossom Cupcakes

The cookies were done now it was time to try and pull off baking them inside a cupcake for my friend. I follow Bake It in a Cake on facebook and I'm constantly fascinated by the creations. Before I ever discovered BIIAC I had already thought baking sweet surprises inside cupcakes sounded awesome. And I tried to create my own Buckeye Cupcake for my dad's birthday. I need to return to that creation and perfect it. I also have a dream in my head to create a cupcake with a truffle inside that is inspired off Baileys Coffee.

I digress. The task at hand is to bake my Peanut Butter Blossoms inside a vanilla cupcake. I used the cake and frosting recipe here. I didn't change a thing and I was very pleased with the result. Very.

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Duo of Cupcakes: Part One, Peanut Butter Blossoms

Yesterday was my friend's birthday. My friend loves cupcakes and peanut butter and I like to bake so I wanted to make her something special. Something she couldn't find in Atlanta on her annual birthday cupcake hunt. I saw these crazy cupcakes and knew I had to try and create them. The first step was baking the Peanut Butter Blossom cookies. I didn't want to use store-bought cookie dough because it tends to be too soft and thin. I needed these to holdup inside the cupcake. Bake It in a Cake linked to a cookie recipe but since I have not abandoned my quest to bake everything in the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, I thought I'd check for a peanut butter cookie there first. No luck. The book only has a Peanut Butter Sandwich cookie. Not what I need. However, I stayed true to Martha and found a recipe on her website for Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies. They used mini Reese's cups and if I had any I would've done that too. Can you just imagine? But alas, I only had chocolate kisses. The comments on Martha's cookie indicated these would have a brownie like consistency. That sounded just right.

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Chewy Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Brownies

I love brownies. Seriously. Love. Brownies. I could give up all other desserts in favor of brownies. The only way I do not like a brownie is with nuts. Do not do that to a brownie. It is an offense to the chocolate perfection. I know this; the brownies speak to me. The brownies also spoke to me when I first saw the Ultimate Edge Brownie Pan. They told me to buy it. The told me if I bought it they would bake. I resisted their cry until the day my neighbor shared she too had been hearing the voice of the brownie. We decided to co-own the best little brownie pan that ever was. 

This past weekend I realized I'd been holding the brownie pan of awesomeness hostage too long and needed to send it next door for a few months. But before I let the pan go I had to make one more batch. Why I didn't turn to Martha's Baking Handbook, I do not know. Instead I made these...

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The Buckeye Cupcake: Phase One

Today's my dad's birthday. He's impossibly hard to buy for on a normal year but this year when he and my mom are working to downsize their home; he's even harder. While brainstorming things he liked my friend posted a link to a cupcake with a peanut butter truffle in the middle on my facebook page. An idea started to smolder. My dad loves buckeyes. He loves them so much it's the only thing he asks for from me at Christmas each year. What if I made a buckeye cupcake? I already have the Martha Stewart Marble Pound Cake with White Chocolate Glaze in the oven that he handpicked for his birthday. But I have a few hours still. I have all the ingredients to make buckeyes. I have a box of chocolate cake mix. Not ideal but maybe with some additions...

Since I was dealing with box mix I substituted whole milk for the water and added in some chocolate fudge sauce.

I froze the buckeye centers before dropping them in the batter. They were warm all the way through but not melted. Yum!

This idea needs some tweaking but phase one was a success. I'm thinking the next version needs to have a chocolate glaze on top, slightly smaller buckeye centers rolled in cocoa. Mmmmmmm....

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