Baking in the summer: Peanut Butter & Chocolate cupcakes, a brilliant recipe from On Cupcake Moon!

As you know, I've been quite in love with baking for a while, though as of late, since summer heat has been around with a vengeance, I haven't been in the mood for much baking...


But, it all changed when Deb from On Cupcake Moon published her newest cupcake recipe: Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cupcakes!


The urge to bake came back, and even though I had to wait till I got some peanut butter, I set up myself into baking in the evening, using my foiled cupcake lines from Sweet Estelle!


For the cupcake batter, I just changed the cacao powder for one of my Flying Birds Botanicals cacaos, the Lavender & Mint one this time!




Once done, they looked pretty awesome even without the icing, and I was tempted to eat them like that!






Then it was time for working on the delicious peanut butter icing! As per Deb's advice, I let the butter melt completely before starting to work on the icing and it looked just great!




I have to say I'm a bit of a newb when it comes to working on the icing, with the new tips and pastry bag I got on my Cupcake Set... so they don't look perfect, but I do intend to keep at it, since practice makes perfect!








They're pretty much amazing, and everyone that have tasted them have loved them to bits, so if you're looking for a new delicious cupcake recipe, THIS IS IT!

Winning a Glamasaurus Giveaway!

Winning a giveaway is always a special feeling, and recently, I've been the happy winner of two!
First one was one of HeartSizedCrush's Free Shit Tuesdays, but I'll be dedicating a full blog entry to it, and the second one, was hosted by Gaming Angels, and the prize was a gift certificate to Andreanna's shop: Glamasaurus.


Glamasaurus is full of all things cute, geeky & delicious looking, and as her tagline says, it's so sweet that it'll give you cavities, just by looking at it!


So winning a $30 gift certificate to her shop was like giving a kid free reign on a sweet shop! But truth be told, I already knew what I wanted to get, since I had been wanting the most edible looking necklace in history since she listed it!: the Chocolate Deluxe Cookie necklace!


Getting a package from Andreanna is really like getting a present! It's wrapped so nicely, that it makes you feel not like you've bought something (or won something, in my case) but like you are getting a proper gift in the mail!










And inside that super cute packaging, there it was, the most realistic chocolate cookie made with polymer clay in existence! And if you add to it, the faux whipped cream and the mini plastic donuts & chocolate... it looks so delicious you wanna eat it!












She also sent me a super cute mushroom bobby pin, and a super cute cookie ring! The danger of such a ring is that you might end up nibbling on it when you are hungry and bored... cause once again, it looks like a proper yummy cookie!







Showing it off to the bf, he went on his usual rant for when I buy "food looking things": "You are evil! I'm gonna end up eating one of those things and then we'll end up with me in the ER and you explaining that I ate a piece of soap/necklace/etc that looked/smelt like chocolate/a donut/a cookie!" He does have a point, since he has already tried to bite into one of the delicious chocolate smelling soaps that I have while in the shower...


But I can't help it, I love all these food-looking goodies, even if they look delicious but are not edible! Even if I do feel like biting into them on occasion too... ;)

Chocolate Cupcakes & Flying Bird Botanicals Cacaos!

Hello everyone!


Happy Friday (for those who have the weekend off)!


Yesterday I promised you a blog entry today about the chocolate cupcakes and here I am, going to fulfill the promise!


These amazing chocolate cupcakes are made with only the cupcake part of the AMAZING recipe for Mocha Cheesecake Cupcakes that the brilliant Tom from TokyoTombola sent me along with my fruit cozies! I have to say this recipe is the one that has made me fall in love with baking & cupcakes!


This recipe calls for cocoa powder, and since a while ago I got myself an amazing set for the chocolate lovers from Flying Bird Botanicals with three organic cacaos: Chokola, Cacao Especial & Lavender Mint Cacao, so I decide to go and try using the Cacao Especial, and damn, it does give it a super nice touch! I'm thinking of also using the other two, the Chokola to give it a bit of a more spicy taste, and the Lavender one, just because! Can you tell I like making these cupcakes?




Here goes the recipe!:

Tom's amazing chocolate cupcakes!

Ingredients:

- 125 g self-raising flour
- 100 g caster sugar
- 25 g demerara sugar
- 125 g butter (unsalted) room temperature
- 50 g cacao powder
- 60 ml whole milk
- 2 large eggs

Method:

- Line a 12 muffin tin with the muffin/cupcake cases.
- Put the over on 180ºC/350ºF ready to put tin on middle rack
- Cream butter and sugar
- Beat in eggs, one at a time
- Mix in cocoa powder
- Mix in flour
- Mix in milk, beat until smooth.
- Divide mixture between muffin cases.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes (mine are ready at 20 min) or until a toothpick inserted comes clean/ they spring back to the touch.






You could always frost them, but I love them as they are, and so did my sis-in-law, brother and nephews that devoured them too fast yesterday for me to take pics!




Confession: I was too busy eating with them to take the pics too! ;)