When I was looking through my two Primrose Bakery cookbooks and planning what to bake next, I was spoilt for choice! Lots of delicious mouthwatering cupcakes with different tastes and colours, also different flavours some more unusual than others.

Then, one evening about 2 weeks ago my choice was made for me. A customer asked me if I made peanut butter cupcakes.  Up til then I hadn’t, to be honest it was something I had never got round to trying out due to being too busy.  I’m so glad I did and the customer loved them.  In the first book “Cupcakes From The Primrose Bakery” is a recipe for peanut butter cupcakes and topped with a milk chocolate icing.  I looked through the recipe, looked at the picture and thought that it looked straightforward.

I like to make my own twists to recipes, to call them my own and I like to decorate my cupcakes differently. This wasn’t difficult with the peanut butter cupcakes as the picture in the book showed the cupcakes decorated with peanut butter chips.  I have never ever seen them in the UK, they must be American.  The nearest thing I had used to that was some butterscotch chips I had brought back from a trip to the US about 3 years ago.  I sourced some Reeses Peanut Butter Drops (like M&M’s) but I had a crap day and delved into them when I had a chocolate craving. After that I felt really sick and thought well if I felt sick I don’t want my customers to!   I then had an idea that I could top the cupcakes with peanut M&M’s.  At the moment, what with the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics there’s some bags of red, white and blue ones floating about so they were perfect.  If I have to make them again in the future I’ll use the standard ones or the other limited edition ones.

So, read on to find out how I made them:

The notes in the recipe state that the cupcake is fairly rich and dense, I would agree with that, but I was assured they were moreish!

I mixed the cupcake batter using the creaming method in my KitchenAid mixer.  First I creamed the butter, peanut butter and the sugar together, then added the eggs carefully along with a spoonful of vanilla extract.  The dry ingredients were combined separately, then added slowly to the mixture.

To note: It states in the recipe to use smooth peanut butter.  Personally I don’t like the cheaper brands of peanut butter as they are full of added sugar which to my mind is totally unnessecary! I prefer spending a little bit more and buying a nicer brand, such as Whole Earth. Their peanut butter contains oil, but no sugar.

When it was time to spoon the batter into the cupcake cases I realised I had some American themed cupcake cases left over from a 4th July order beforehand.  As these cupcakes were American in style I chose to bake them in the remaining cases I had left. Usually the Yorkshire Bakery cupcakes are baked in whatever cupcake cases I have left in stock that co-ordinates well with the cakes.

Here are the finished Peanut Butter Cupcakes topped with the luxury chocolate icing and with the red, white and blue peanut M&M’s for decoration.

If you want to bake these for yourself you will find the peanut butter cupcake recipe on p72 in Cupcakes From The Primrose Bakery.

Happy Baking!
Love Sam x