Peanut buttttterrrrr.
Chocolaaatttteeeeeeee.
Peanut butterrrrrr.
Chocolaaateeeeeeeeee.
Um. YUM. Peanut butter and chocolate. Need I say more? YES.
Peanut butterrrrr
chocolateeeee
caraaaamelllll
pretzelsssss.
QUADRUPLE YUM in honor of the link-up party at Buns In My Oven! Make sure to go here and check out other deliciously awesome recipes.
Take 5 has been one of my favorite candy bars since first biting into that salty caramel-y chocolate-y goodness....y(ha). There is this adorable quaint little cupcake shop that I miss more than anything back up in northern Utah, my former stomping ground. In fact, this little cupcake shop happens to be this past season of Cupcake War's winner! Hurray. And I must say, they definitely deserved it. Just last night it was me and my hunk-of-a-husband's date night and we've already gotten ice cream twice on our date night because its so hot here(already hitting above the 100's!). I don't know how I will survive. Anyways, we decided to go try out the cupcakes at this cake parlor just in the heart of St. George. MISTAKE. They were expensive.Tiny. And, most importantly, none of their cupcakes have any filling.SAY WHAT?!Yeah, don't I know it. Needless to say, we just bought one and left feeling this deep yearning for the large and luscious decadent cupcakes sold at Cravings Alisha's Cupcakes in Pleasant Grove, Utah. I am not kidding you guys, best cupcakes ever. They are big and moist and crumbly and everything a perfect cupcake can be. And, most importantly, they have filling. I want to tell you about all the kinds of cupcakes I've eaten there. Rather, I'll just encourage you to try them out yourselves. The atmosphere there is extremely comfy and family friendly. We go eat cupcakes on Monday nights and let our little Yogurt Drop play in the kitchen play area they have there for kids. She loves it. Anyways, I've been needing great cupcakes badly. I was going through withdrawals when I got here, and so I thought up one that I have never had before. And, oh my. Um, yeah. You'll see.
Crumbled pretzels on the bottom.
A peanut butter cupcakes that is so moist inside you'll die, and so crunchy on top it's like a peanut butter cookie!
Is there filling you ask?Caramel.
The frosting on top is one I made up which you don't need a lot of and it's not super buttery, which I love.
Garnish: a few chunks of soft-chewy caramel, Hershey's chocolate and a few more pieces of pretzel.
Make it. You wont regret it.
TAKE 5 CUPCAKES
The peanut butter cupcake recipe I used was from: marthastewart.com. I used crunchy peanut butter instead of soft, and I used salted butter. Also, don't forget to crumble up some pretzels and sprinkle them in the bottom of the cupcake liners before putting the batter in.
Peanut Butter Cupcake Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup natural, creamy peanut butter
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
Make cupcakes as directed in Basic Cupcake How-To, adding peanut butter before adding eggs. Use sour cream and vanilla as wet ingredients. Once cupcakes are cool, frost tops with peanut butter frosting. Place a dollop of jam in center of frosting. Decorated cupcakes will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 2 days.
Once your cupcakes are looking like they are ALMOST ready to take out, take a Werther's original chewy caramel and just shove it right into the center of the cupcake! Then, let them finish baking. Take them out and let them properly cool. Put however much frosting you would like onto them, and garnish them with the leftover pretzel bits, caramel bits and little chunks of Hershey's chocolate.
Take 5 Cupcake Frosting
1 8 oz. tub of Cool Whip.
1 16 oz. container of Hershey Milk Chocolate frosting.
Then, just blend it all together in a big bowl! I don't like that much frosting, so if you want more you can just put as much Cool Whip or chocolate frosting as you want. I used beaters to blend it all together, which makes it kind of runny which is how I like it. You can try to fold it in to make it a bit more fluffy.
Toppings
1 bag of Werther's soft and chewy caramels (1 per cupcake center). After you have filled the center of each cupcake chop up the left overs to put on top of the cupcakes.
1 Hershey's milk chocolate bar. Break this into small chunks, as well.
Use the left-over crumbled pretzels to sprinkle on top.
