Tag Archives: peanut butter

May 17, 2013 · 10:35 am

Reese’s Cupcakes

Tomorrow is a coworker’s birthday. She asked me to bring chocolate cupcakes. Too boring for me, so I had to get fancy.

These are fun, rich, and look fancy!

Reese’s Cupcakes (yields 24 cupcakes)

The cupcake base is the Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake. It’s right on the back of the cocoa box. I have made them a couple times here and here. Aaaannnnnd I just realized I didn’t post the actual recipe either time so here it is:

Chocolate Cupcakes – adapted from Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup Hershey’s Cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup boiling water

(I know it’s a lot of ingredients but it’s easy – I promise!)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Mix together all dry ingredients in a large bowl (or stand mixer bowl).

2. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla and beat on medium speed for 2 minutes.

3. Carefully add boiling water and mix in thoroughly by hand. (If you try to use the stand mixer, water will splash everywhere. Trust me. Don’t do it.) Batter will be very thin.

4. Fill cupcake liners about 3/4 the way. Bake for 11 minutes. While they are baking, start unwrapping miniature Reese’s cups.

5. After 11 minutes, remove the cupcake pans from the oven. Carefully press a Reese’s cup into the top of each cupcake and return to the oven. Bake for another 11 minutes.

6. Let cool completely before making the frosting.

Some of the cups sank lower than others for the second half of baking…

By the way, how cute are these liners? They are the only non-super-girly liners I could find with orange on them. I felt like orange was necessary because, hello – Reese’s!

Now on to the good stuff….

Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients:

1 lb powdered sugar

1 stick (1/2 cup) salted butter

2/3 cup smooth peanut butter

3 tbsp milk + 2 tbsp milk

2 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Put powdered sugar in the bowl first. Cut up the butter into small slices or chunks, and spread out on top of the powdered sugar. Add peanut butter, vanilla, and 3 tbsp of the milk to the bowl. (I know this sounds silly, but putting the powdered sugar on the bottom helps the other ingredients incorporate better.)

2. Mix on low until powdered sugar is incorporated and will no longer fly across the kitchen. Beat on medium speed until frosting is smooth. Add the remaining 2 tbsp of milk one at a time until fully incorporated.

I frosted my cupcakes with a large closed star tip. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to cover the secret Reese’s cup inside the cupcake. Top with other Reese’s cup and ta-da!

These cupcakes are super rich and SO dreamy with the peanut butter frosting. How have I never made peanut butter frosting before?!

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8 Comments

Filed under Cakes

Tagged as buttercream, chocolate, peanut butter, reeses

December 5, 2012 · 8:00 am

Chocolate Snowflakes

These chocolate peanut butter cookies are decorated with all white vanilla buttercream. I just love the way the designs pop against the dark cookie!

I decorated each snowflake with a unique design.

I thought I would run out of ideas, but I just kept making them up as I went along.. my husband helped design a couple. (The bottom left snowflake in the pic above was partly his design.)

These are my personal favorites:

They even look cute all together…

Here is my buttercream recipe. It’s very easy and adaptable and perfect to top any cookie!

14 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as buttercream, chocolate, peanut butter, snowflake, white

November 21, 2012 · 8:35 am

Fall Leaf Cookies

I tried a few new things with these fun fall leaves!

Instead of doing regular sugar cookies, I wanted to do my leaves dark so that the fall colors would really pop. For these I used Bridget’s Chocolate Peanut Butter recipe. They are very yummy!

Normally, I roll my cookies very thin. Most cookie decorators roll 1/4 inch or 3/8 inch thick. That is crazy to me! My cookies are typically less than 1/8 inch thick. I wanted to try doing thick one time to see how I liked it. They look cute thick, but personally I just prefer a higher icing to cookie ratio.

The third new thing I tried with these was the way I iced them. Normally I outline, flood, detail, etc. Recently I tried pouring the icing over the cookies. This time I dipped them, and let the excess drip off and down the sides. And since I was doing fall leaves in bright fall colors, I swirled the icing. It was fun and each cookie turned out completely different!

Excuse the poor lighting in these photos, it was rainy and yucky this morning!

12 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as chocolate, icing, orange, peanut butter, red, yellow

November 9, 2012 · 8:40 am

Muddy Buddy Fudge

So everyone knows what Muddy Buddies are, right? Some people call them Puppy Chow. My mom always called it reindeer poop. (Gross, but whatever…)

Anyways, I made this amazing fudge that tastes just like Muddy Buddies!!

I started with a recipe that I am hesitant to even link up, because it’s not really a recipe exactly… it’s a hilarious (but crude) pin I found one day on Pinterest. Click here if you really want to see it. There’s no one to site, but I adapted it anyway so here is my recipe.

Muddy Buddy Fudge

Ingredients:

1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1 lb semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine sweetened condensed milk, chocolate chips, and peanut butter. Melt in 30 second intervals, stirring in between to make it smooth.

When it starts to thicken up and get harder to stir, add the vanilla and stir to get it all mixed in there.

Spray a pan with non-stick cooking spray. (I used a 13×9 and my fudge was pretty thin. A 9×9 would make a nice thick fudge.) Dump the fudgey mixture into the pan and press it down evenly. Let chill for at least an hour or until firm.

Cut into squares and enjoy!!

**If you want to leave out the peanut butter because of allergies (let’s face it – no one really dislikes peanut butter, do they?!), it will still be a good regular fudge recipe!

5 Comments

Filed under Candy

Tagged as chocolate, fudge, peanut butter

July 27, 2012 · 8:00 am

Mini Krispy Cupcakes

So a couple days ago I stumbled across this recipe for small batch rice krispy treats.

GENIUS!!

All the guilt of making your unhealthy snack is gone because you can make just enough for one little dessert! I thought this would be the perfect way to experiment with different flavors without making a ton of it (just in case it turned out yucky… like that could even happen with rice krispies…)

The recipe suggests pressing them into a muffin/cupcake pan (which makes 2). I decided to do a mini muffin pan instead (which made about 12), because everyone knows that the smaller a dessert is, the cuter it is too!

I have to give credit where credit is due here… my husband came up with the idea of dipping the tops in chocolate to make them look like cupcakes! I was going to just press them flat and drizzle them. I guess he’s pretty smart at the chocolate stuff because they turned out great!

I made 2 different kinds!!

Peanut Butter Rice Krispies

Ingredients:

1 tbsp butter

1/4 cup smooth peanut butter

1 cup mini marshmallows

1 1/2 cups rice krispies

Directions:

1. Spray muffin pan with non-stick spray.

2. In a small pot, melt butter, mallows, and peanut butter until smooth.

3. Add the rice krispies straight to the pot and stir until completely coated in goop.

4. Remove pot from heat and carefully scoop krispies into the muffin pan cavaties. Make the tops rounded if you want it to look like a cupcake, or make them flat if you want them to look like little cups.

5. Wait. The hardest part, I know.

6. When they are set up (mine took an hour or 2), melt chocolate, white chocolate, or candy melts to dip or drizzle however you like.

I had just enough mini mallows to do another small batch…

Chocolate Rice Krispies

Ingredients:

2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup mini marshmallows

1 1/2 cups rice krispies

Directions:

1. Spray muffin pan with non-stick spray.

2. In a small pot, melt butter, mallows, and chocolate until smooth.

3. Add the rice krispies straight to the pot and stir until completely coated in goop.

5. Wait. The hardest part, I know.

6. When they are set up (mine took an hour or 2), melt chocolate, white chocolate, or candy melts to dip or drizzle however you like.

As soon as I can get to the store to buy more mini mallows, I will be making new krispy recipes!

5 Comments

Filed under Misc

Tagged as chocolate, marshmallows, peanut butter, rice krispy treats, white chocolate

June 19, 2012 · 8:00 am

Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

My brother and I love candy.

This love of candy is one of the reasons he makes an excellent Target shopping partner. (I have gone to Target with a number of different people and I have discovered that not everyone shops Target the same way. My brother and I are good together at Target because we understand the most important part of the store is the 3 aisles of candy in the far back corner near the seasonal section.)

I recently had a poll on facebook asking people to rate these in order from MOST favorite to LEAST favorite: cookies, cake, ice cream, candy, pie. (For the record, mine is 1. Candy 2. Ice Cream 3. Cake 4. Cookies 5. Pie) It was fun seeing everyone’s answers!

Anywhoo… on one of my brother’s candy trips to Target, he disovered this:

It’s basically like a Hershey bar except each individual bar is a separate Reese’s.

I knew I had to make something with them, and this is what I came up with!

It’s a Peanut Butter cookie dough wrapped around an individual Reese’s bar, then baked long and slow so that they are soft, chewy, and melty chocolate on the inside!

Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies – adapted from Simply Recipes

Ingredients:

1 stick butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Beat butter for 2 minutes. Add sugars and beat for 2 minutes more, scraping sides of bowl halfway through. Add peanut butter and egg and mix until combined. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Slowly add to sugar mixture until completely combined. Let chill for at least 2 hours.

2. Cut apart Reeses bars. Get a ball of dough about 2-3 tablespoons and flatten with your fingers. Put the little Reeses bar inside and wrap it up all snug. I sort of rolled it into a little log shape after the bar was completely covered.

3. Space the cookie logs about 2-3 inches apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet, they will spread quite a bit.

4. Bake at 300* for 15 minutes. Let cool for about 15 minutes on the pan before moving to a drying rack. They will come out of the oven a little poofy so they need to set and settle as they cool.

These might be the best cookies I’ve ever had. Especially if you eat it when it’s still warm!

3 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as chocolate, peanut butter, reeses

June 12, 2012 · 8:00 am

Cake Mix Peanut Butter Brownies

If you’ve been around here for a significant amount of time, you know how I feel about chocolate. I’ve made brownies twice. This time and this time.

But for some reason I have been wanting to make some brownies lately. I got the perfect opportunity when a friend asked me to bring dessert over for a small dinner group. It just so happens that the favorite candy of this group is Reese’s.

I compiled a few different ideas and ingreients from different recipes to make my very own recipe. You can find my inspiration here, here, and here.

Cake Mix Peanut Butter Brownies – recipe by me!

Ingredients:
1 box chocolate cake mix
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 package Reese’s cup minis

Directions:
1. Preheat oven 350*. Line 13×9 pan with foil then spray with non-stick spray.

2. Mix together cake mix, oil, milk, and egg. Spread half of the batter into the bottom of the pan.

3. In a separate bowl mix together sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter. Pour and spread evenly over the cake batter.

4. Cut the Reese’s minis in half and distribute over the glorious peanut butter mixture.

5. Dollop the remaining cake mix over the Reese’s and carefully spread it out as much as possible.

Peekaboo Reese’s!

6. Bake for 25 minutes and let cool completely.

7. Remove from pan by lifting out with the foil. Cut into squares. Eat. Share.

Look how cute this plate is that I got from Target! Perfect for the summer…

These are moist, not too rich, and perfectly peanut buttery!

2 Comments

Filed under Misc

Tagged as brownies, chocolate, peanut butter

February 22, 2012 · 8:00 am

Mini Reese’s Cookies

I had a poll on my facebook page a while back. Rolos vs. Mini Reese’s.

Rolos won.

But my secret? I really planned on doing both all along. I just couldn’t decide which to do first!

My biggest problem is I couldn’t decide what to make with them. I first got the idea to use them in something from Shelly at Cookies & Cups when she made these. I wanted to do something different because I’m not a huge fan of chocolate.

I couldn’t do blondies again, and I didn’t want to do the standard peanut butter cookies, because I don’t love peanut butter that much.

So what to do…

I thought of other things I enjoy with peanut butter and Muddy Buddies came to mind. Chocolate, peanut butter, perfect harmony.

Then I remembered these brownies. The basic ingredient is chocolate cake instead of brownie mix. And they are gooood brownies. So chocolate cake must be okay.

That’s it! Chocolate cake cookies! And then I realized. That is exactly what Shelly made. I made a full loop and ended up back in the SAME PLACE.

So here you have it. Chocolate cake cookies with Mini Reese’s.

Mix a boxed chocolate cake mix (I used Milk Chocolate flavored), 2 eggs, and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil.

Once the batter is all ready, add in the full bag of Mini Reese’s. Mix it up some more, the cups will break up a bit but that is perfectly okay!

Use a cookie scoop (or 2 tablespoons) to form balls and drop on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. These cookies will spread so keep them a couple inches apart.

Bake 9-12 minutes at 350.

These are super fast and easy. Whip some up and don’t forget to share!

2 Comments

Filed under Cookies

Tagged as chocolate, easy cookies, peanut butter, reeses

July 21, 2011 · 10:45 pm

Doggies Deserve Treats Too!

A while back I found a recipe online for homemade dog biscuits that I wanted to make. Seemed really easy, and much more inexpensive and healthy than store bought treats. And I figured I make all these yummy treats for everyone else, but doggies deserve treats too!

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/3 cup peanut butter (I used creamy)

1 1/4 cup hot water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour and oats. Add peanut butter then hot water. Stir everything together. If it’s really sticky add a bit more flour. Knead well, then roll out to about 1/4 inch thick (or thicker if you have a big doggie).

Cut into shapes and place on greased cookie sheet (or line it with parchment paper). You can place them very close together, they don’t spread at all. they actually shrink up a bit. Bake for 40 minutes then transfer to a cookie rack.