Peanut Butter Cupcakes - for the peanut butter lovers! ^.^

I want to make this cupcakes especially for my parents. They work in a take away shop and very often need to go back early on a Sunday morning to deep clean the whole kitchen on top of the daily cleaning after work (for those who had worked in those environments before should understand how easily the kitchen becomes get greased up after only a few days)!




Even though there are ample of ingredients and foods in the kitchen, however after cleaning for a good few hours they usually preferred to reached for biscuits and cakes to replaced their afternoon meals instead of making a hot chow meins or rices to eat.




I've started to bake Japanese cheesecake few weeks ago and my mum mentioned that my dad used to love the cupcakes she makes (even if it's one of those ready-prepared where you only add eggs and milk in :p) so I thought "why not bake some for them"? My dad are a peanut butter lover, his usual breakfast (and supper) is peanut butter sandwiches so I try looking on the Internet to see if there is a peanut butter cupcake recipe? I'm glad there are loads :) I really love the taste because I'm also a peanut butter lover myself. I want to share with you all this recipe. It is very easy to make.




http://www.motherthyme.com/2011/09/peanut-butter-cupcakes.html?m=1




The recipe was taken from the website above. It also included the frosting, however I'm not a fan of the frosting as I find it very sweet so I left it out, but I've included the recipe below in case you want to add it on top of the cakes :)




Makes 12 cupcakes




Ingredients

¼ cup unsalted butter ( ½ stick)

¾ cup creamy peanut butter

½ cup sugar

1 egg

¼ teaspoon vanilla

1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

⅔ cup whole milk




Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.




Using an electric mixer combine butter, peanut butter and sugar until creamy. Add in egg and vanilla and continue to mix until combined.









Mixing butter, peanut butter and milk together.










Adding in egg and vanilla essence


Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to peanut butter mixer, alternating with milk on low speed until all combined and batter is creamy.



















Spoon in to lined cupcake tray ⅔ full. Bake for 20 minutes until tester comes out clean.














Ready to be baked...










... 20 minutes later





Cool on wire racks.










Buttercream Frosting







Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 cups confectioners sugar

4 tablespoons whole milk













Directions

Cream butter with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Slowly add in confectioners sugar until all is combined and blended. Stir in vanilla extract, and milk until frosting is creamy.










Fill pastry bag and pipe on cupcakes or frost as desired.














Enjoy!




Mary xx

Apple Crumble

I remember making my first Apple Crumble in Food Tech. lesson in secondary school. I remember coming home quite proud with the fact I made something nice.

Anyway fast forward to present, I recently found the exact recipe to the one I made in my teens and decided to have a go at it, most of the recipes I came across involved baking the uncooked apples with the flour mixtures together in the oven. This one I feel is more easier (from my point of view).

The recipe it from this website: http://allrecipes.co.uk/m/recipe/478/perfect-apple-crumble.aspx

Cooking time: 1 hour 30 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 6
- 6 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and diced
- 250g caster sugar
- 200g plain flour
- 120g butter
- 1 clove or cinnamon stick

Preparation method

Prep: 15 mins | Cook: 30 mins | Extra: 45 mins

1. Put the apple chunks into a pan, add three quarters of the sugar, the cinnamon stick or clove and cover. Allow to stew gently for half an hour, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Keep checking as they can easily burn at the beginning.

2. Check that the fruit is cooked by mashing it a bit with a wooden spoon. The apples should be soft but not puréed.

3. Put the apples into the serving dish and allow to cool. Set the temperature of the oven to 150 C / gas 2.

4. Mix the flour, remaining sugar and the butter with your fingers in a bowl until it becomes like a breadcrumb consistency. Cover the stewed apples with the crumble topping, without pressing down.

5. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown and crunchy. Spoon a helping of crumble into a dish and serve with cream or ice cream.

The end product looks okay, but the taste need a bit of an improvement, but its entirely my fault.

Here's the reason why:
1) I've put 3/4 of the total amount of sugar into the mixture, but it tasted a little too sweet. To be fair I didn't weigh the ingredients out as I don't find weighing scales, I used "weight-to-cup" conversion which is not that exact, therefore it did affect the taste.
2) Stupidly enough I did not realised I only put in 1/2 of the flours needed! (200g I worked out is roughly 2 cups. I only put one cup in!) =_=!
I thought it was odd when the flour mixtures doesn't resemble breadcrumbs, but more like a dry paste! Therefore I added more flours, 1/8 cup at a time until it looks like crumbs (by then I must have added nearly 1 cup!)
3) I baked the crumble for nearly an hour because I was waiting for it to turn golden brown, it didn't and I could see the apple at the bottom is boiling up so I turned the oven off. Probably need to set the temperature higher next time. Still it was ok, apart from a little too sweet :p. oh well, practise make perfect ;)

Here I share my photos with you. Enjoy!

Mary xx