For many years I have been on the hunt for the perfect peanut butter cupcakes. I adore peanut butter and will eat it with almost anything and quite happily on its own straight from the jar with a spoon. Crunchy or smooth either will do and strangely I am very partial to banana and peanut butter sandwiches… mmm peanut butter and banana, now that could work in a cake!

But back to the subject at hand of peanut butter cupcakes, I’ve tried many recipes before and I have always found them to be too dense or too dry.

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And after a day they are almost always far too hard to really enjoy. I don’t know why I never seemed to be able to crack this recipe.

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A few times I have been on holiday or working in America and I had visited cake shops and had enjoyed a peanut butter cupcake. They were always amazingly delicious and the supermarket aisles are always jammed pack full of cool peanut butter stuff, especially in the baking aisle. I never allowed this to put me off trying again if anything it made me more determined to crack this recipe.















So recently I decided to take another crack at the fabled peanut butter cupcake. I went through all the recipes I had tried before and even a few American ones for comparison.

Most of the British recipes called for caster sugar but a couple of the American ones called for brown sugar. Brown sugar in cakes can give added moistness, (sorry to keep saying this word but I can’t think of another! Anyway as I was saying…) to the sponge to try and get as much of this in the cake I decided to use dark brown sugar for added punch. And brown sugar always adds another flavour dimension its self.















I also added milk to the recipe to keep the batter a little more liquid in the hopes this would help battle the dreaded dryness. I also used smooth peanut butter in this cake batter, it was a conscious choice, I have both in the cupboard but I thought the smooth might blend in a little better.

The cake turned out perfect; it was light, moist and just the right amount out peanut butter flavour. I was so happy I personally think I had cracked it.

Now there are 1000 and 1 ways to frost these babies! I originally wanted a vanilla buttercream with a strawberry jam swirl through it so I could get the whole peanut butter and jelly thing going on, but I had no strawberry jam at hand. Cream cheese frosting would be lovely; a plain peanut butter frosting would be very nice for ramping up the peanut butter flavour. But I went with another classic combination of peanut butter and chocolate.















These two flavours like all peanut butter lovers know go so well together, it’s like a food marriage made in heaven. I love the classic American PB&J though our jam in the UK is a little different than the American version Jelly so for me, it’s never quite the same.















I used a classic chocolate frosting with a peanut butter swirl through it. It was super sweet and super yummy. Now I could wax lyrical forever about the delights and wonder of peanut butter so I shall stop myself now and get on with the recipe and directions. I hope you give these a go, as they really are so scrummy! Just one word of warning before you go on, this is the worlds best-tasting cake batter and you will find it almost impossible not to scoff the lot before you get it in the oven.

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