elanya

I apologize - I am not the photographer that some around here are, and I also over baked these a bit because I didn't hear the timer go off :/ I nevertheless feel like this experiment was a success!




I used the Black and White cupcake recipe from the Mrs Fields cookie book as my base. It is quite excellent on its own. All I did was add some peanut butter to the white part:

Cream Cheese (and PB!) layer:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 c granulated sugar
1 egg, lg
...and I added 1/2 c peanut butter. It could maybe use a little more.

Cake layer:
1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 C granulated sugar
1/4 C +1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa (I used Hershey's special dark)
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C water
1/3 C oil
1 egg, lg
1 tsp vanilla
30 oz (1/2 C) chocolate chips (optional - I never use them)

-Preheat over to 350.

-Prepare cream cheese layer. In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in the sugar, egg (and pb!) until well blended.

-Make the cake layer. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt. In a small bowl, beat together water, oil, egg, and vanilla. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Add chocolate chips if you're using them.

-Fill the muffin pans about half full of the cake batter Using the remaining cake batter and all the cream cheese/pb batter, spoon equal amounts on tp of the cake batter, creating a top that is about half and half. they say you can sprinkle the tops with more chocolate chips if you want. I might have used peanuts if I'd had any. This makes exactly 12 cupcakes.

-Bake for 30-35 min or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan for ten min, and then cool the rest of the way on a rack.

As I said, the black and white cupcakes themselves are divine, but I was craving chocolate and peanut butter and decided to experiment. I use unsweetened peanut butter, and next time I might use more sugar to make them a little sweeter, and maybe a little more pb. This way also makes more of the 'white' batter, so the cupcakes were a little larger - score!

I still have most of them left (the dangers of living alone...) and I am trying to decide if maybe I want to frost them. Thoughts?