cupcake win(s)!

What happens when you are a procrastinator of epic proportions (I have two “important” things I am supposed to be working on but don’t feel particularly invested in) and you are childless and asked to make cupcakes for a 3-year-old’s birthday party? You go a little crazy.

Strawberry cream-filled vanilla cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting.

I didn’t get quite as much strawberry cream filling inside of them as I thought I did. Note to self- muscle the pastry bag more next time!

Basic chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream icing, and a decorative chocolate drizzle and cherry. I think I blew the mind of a 6-year-old who said that she liked vanilla better than chocolate when I informed her there was vanilla in chocolate cake she was eating, but she just couldn’t see it. She was quite occupied working that over for awhile.

And now the serious winners of the party:

For those who love peanut butter and chocolate- brace yourselves. I saw the inspiration for these some time ago on this blog, but was awaiting the ideal opportunity to tweak them and unleash them on the world.

I’m officially calling them The Home Run. A chocolate cupcake, filled with a peanut butter custard, topped with a layer of ganache, a peanut butter cookie and topped with a hand-rolled peanut butter chocolate truffle. Oh yeah, baby.

I will post a whole recipe for them soon. Needless to say they are a bit involved, but totally worth it. I got rave reviews from folks who were self-proclaimed PB and chocolate haters (although I firmly believe such a group of people doesn’t exist). If you just want wait to give them a try, I used the chocolate cake recipe from my Darkest Forest Cake recipe and the PB Cookies recipe from my cookbook for those components.

I know the whole cupcake craze is starting to wane a bit (what do you think will take their place?) but I don’t think we’ll ever quite recover from how fun they are! Cupcakes aren’t just cake… they are a way of life!