Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes!

It's been a while!

My god it has been a while!

I have been so busy lately completing my degree, but now I am FREEEEEE and that can only mean one thing...baking, baking and more baking!

Anyway I'm back with another tasty recipe...

Are you ready??

I've never really been a fan of peanut butter, but I was asked by a friend to make her some cupcakes that involved peanut butter.  So I decided to make my brownie cupcakes with peanut butter icing.

Here they are!

Surprisingly Delicious!

Here's how I did it!

Ingredients

For the brownies:

- 185g unsalted butter

- 100g best dark chocolate

- 85g milk chocolate

- 85g plain flour

- 40g cocoa powder

- 50g white chocolate chips

-50g of milk chocolate chips

- 3 large eggs

- 275g golden caster sugar
- 12 muffin cases
- 12 hole muffin tin

For the icing:

                                 - 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened                           

                    - 100g smooth peanut butter                  

- 100g icing sugar

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Reese's Peanut Butter cups (quartered)

- 1 tablespoon double cream
- Piping bag and nozzle

Method

1. Cut the butter and the dark and milk chocolate into small chunks and put into a bowl.  Put the bowl over a saucepan that has a small amount of water in it (about 2 inches).  Make sure that the bowl is not touching the water. Put over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix them. Once all combined and liquidy, remove from the heat and set to the side to cool at room temperature.  
2. Pre-heat your oven to 160C fan/ 180C conventional/ gas mark 4 and prepare your cupcake tin with your choice of cases.  I chose cute pink polka dot ones :)
3. In another bowl break in the eggs and add the golden caster sugar.  With your electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar together until they look thick and creamy, almost a milk shake sort of consistency!  It may take a while if your mixer isn't very powerful, but keep going, it'll get there eventually! When it's ready it'll be pale in colour and double its original size.  
4. Next, pour the cooled chocolate and butter combo, over the egg and sugar mixture, then gently fold together with a rubber spatula.  Do not over mix, you want to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.  Gently use a figure eight motion, plunging in at one side and taking it under and out the opposite side.  It'll be a marbled brown colour when it is ready, just remember to be gentle.  
5. Sieve the flour and cocoa powder into the mixture, the fold it in using the same motion as in step 4.  It'll look fudgy in consistency when it is ready, stop before you think you should, to make sure that you're not over mixing.Once that is done, stir in the white and milk chocolate chips until they’re dotted throughout. Phew! Take a breath, you're done mixing for now, it's the ovens turn to tag in!
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared cases, make sure that you use all of the mixture to make the most out of the recipe.  Pop it in the middle of the oven for around 25-35 minutes, to check give the tray a slight shake, if it is ready then they will not wobble in the middle.  Another test is to stab it with a cocktail stick, if it comes out more or less clean then they are done.   The tops should look like shiny, cracked, paper! 
7. Leave them on a wire rack to cool whilst you get on with the icing.  
8. In a bowl, combined the butter and peanut butter using your electric mixer on a medium to high speed.  It'll be pretty sticky so now you can add the double cream and vanilla extract at this point, which will add a bit of liquidity.  Once they are combined gently sift in the icing sugar in small batches.  Keep mixing together until it is all combined and smooth in consistency.  
9. Once the cakes are cool, fill a piping bag, with your nozzle of choice attached (I used the Wilton 2d nozzle) but any nozzle will do, or if you don't have any piping bags or nozzles then you could use a knife to roughly apply the icing to the tops of the brownies.  Top them all off with some of the Reese's peanut butter cups.    
10. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

I hope that you enjoy making these cupcakes, I know I did (I probably enjoyed the eating more if im honest!).  Check back for more indulgent recipes coming soon :) If you have any requests, leave me a comment below!

My Life Right Now...

My life right now is a mess!

Yes a total hot mess.

I am surprisingly calm considering that I have 2 deadlines this week, the assignments for which I have yet to start.  Story of my life really.  I started my 3rd year at university with the mantra "I will not leave anything until the last minute this year" FAMOUS LAST WORDS!

I am finding myself switching between watching Youtube videos, looking at memes on Tickld, trying to buy Christmas presents for my family and just general procrastination.  Why can't I focus on the task at hand?

If I have learnt anything from my last 2 years at uni, it's that leaving everything until the last minute usually results in me sitting at my laptop until the silly hours of the morning, weeping onto my keyboard cursing the day I ever decided to go to uni. However I still manage to get the work done, just.  I seem to work so much faster under pressure, but sometimes I feel like the stress is going to give me an aneurysm.  Yet I still do it.  I know i'm not alone as on many occasions my other all nighter buddies pop up on Facebook in the same blind panic as me, asking what my word count is and then cursing the fact that they have done even less.  It's some comfort I guess.

Even now as I type, I'm putting more effort and time into writing this blog post than my assignment that is open in another window.  Actually this post is just me finding a way to procrastinate further and just so happens to be more words than I have written of my assignment, all week!

So the moral of this poorly written story is to never leave assignments until the last minutes!

It's not logical

It's not healthy

It's not fun

and it's clearly what i'm going to continue doing until I finish University!

This post has had no direction from the start so i'll end it here and return to my own personal hell.

Wish me luck

Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes!

Hello you lovely lot :)

It's been a while since I've Blogged (slaps back of hand!) Naughty Me!

Anyway i'm back and I'll now be blogging with a vengeance so watch out!

I just wanted to share with you my recipe for these gorgeous, what I like to call, Mini Victoria Sponge Cakes!

They are basically a vanilla cupcake with a section cut out, filled with jam and then topped with buttercream!  

So simple! 

So tasty! 

So here's how I made them:

Ingredients

For the cupcakes

175g Self Raising Flour

175g Caster Sugar

175g Unsalted butter/margarine 

3 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (good quality) 

For the buttercream

250g Icing sugar

150g Unsalted butter (softened) 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons of whipping cream

Also any Jam for the filling (I chose raspberry)

Method

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4/180'C/350F

For the cupcakes

1. With a mixer, mix together the butter and sugar until light in colour and creamy in texture.

2. Sieve in the flour, mix and then add the vanilla.

3. Finally add the eggs and mix until combined.

4. Spoon the mixture into a 12 hole muffin tray lined with muffin cases.

5. Place in centre of the oven and bake for approx 20 minutes (or until golden and springy to the touch)

For the buttercream

1. Combine butter and icing sugar with a mixer.

2. Add the vanilla and mix.

3. Add double cream and mix.  (If mixture is too dry add more cream, if too moist add more icing sugar)

4. Once cakes have cooled, cut out a round section from the centre of the top of the cupcake. (keep the cut out piece) 

5. You should have a little well, into which you should put a dollop of jam.

6. Then top the jam with as much buttercream as desired and then top with the piece that was previously cut out.  

7. Finally once they are all done, dust with a little icing sugar.

Et Voila!

Enjoy!

Floral Nail Art!

I just wanted to quickly share my latest nail art attempt.

I was bored one night and seeing as my boyfriend was playing on his Xbox, it seemed like the perfect time to paint my nails!

I wanted to try something different, then I remembered seeing a tutorial on Youtube which involved some tooth picks and many different colour nail varnishes. 

So I decided to try a flower design and here are the results.
Scroll down to see how it's done.

I used 3 different colours, I chose a pink for the base, a green for the centre of the flowers and a pearlised white for the petals.

I would suggest using colours that complement one another for a girly, subtle look, but if you're feeling adventurous you can go for any colours you like! 

However I would recommend using a medium colour for the base, a darker colour for the centre and a light colour for the petals to make them stand out.

Method

1. Paint nails with chosen base colour.

2. Pour out a small amount of your darker and lighter colours onto a piece of paper (keep separate)

3. Use a tooth pick to dot on the centre of the flowers, once dry use another tooth pick to apply the lighter colour for the petals.

4. Once completely dry paint on your top coat of choice.

The products I used are:

- Pall Mall by Nails Inc (petals)

- Misty Jade 045 by Rimmel (centre of flowers) 

- The base colour was a gift, and was created for me using the Couture by Nails Inc service (http://www.nailsinc.com/couture) 

The closest colour match I can find is Brook Street by Nails Inc.

Enjoy!