Peanut butter, honey and chocolate cupcakes

Back to American inspired baking with my favourite peanut butter and chocolate combo but with the addition of honey.  These cupcakes are based on  my previously successful peanut butter cupcakes with a hidden surprise. It might seem like a honey overload but it worked really well.  I used honey peanut butter instead of normal peanut butter; substituted the sugar for honey and added a tablespoon of honey to the frosting as well.  I used leatherwood honey which I brought back from Australia. It's incredibly fragrant and tastes like real honey! I visited a local honey farm over there and had the best honey ice cream in the world.  This pot of honey has a lot of air miles and carbon footprints so I'll be looking at local sources once my supply runs out. If anyone has any recommendations, do let me know as honey is one of my favourite ingredients. 

I'm entering this to We Should Cocoa, a monthly blogging challenge created by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and Chele from Chocolate Teapot. Choclette is our lovely host this month and she has chosen honey as the special ingredient.  

I'm also entering these cupcakes to Tea Time Treats hosted by Kate from What Kate Baked and co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme for this month is fairy cakes, cupcakes and muffins. 

I bought these from America - mini Reese's peanut butter cups and a jar of peanut butter blended with honey. 

 adding melted chocolate to the frosting

 how cute are the mini peanut butter cups? 

 hidden (normal sized) peanut butter cup) inside 

Peanut butter cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

75g butter
130g honey peanut butter (you can use smooth peanut butter)
130g honey (+ 50g brown sugar if your honey is not too sweet)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g plain flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
60ml semi-skimmed milk
12 Reese's peanut butter cups

Chocolate Buttercream frosting
175g dark chocolate
225g butter

1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
250g icing sugar, sifted

• Preheat the oven to 160C.
• Line a 12-hole muffin tray with cupcake cases. 
• Cream the butter, peanut butter and honey (and sugar if using) until well blended. 
• Add the eggs, one at a time and then stir in the vanilla extract. 
• Combine the flour, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl.
• Add 1/3 of the flour to the creamed mixture and beat well.
• Pour 1/3 of the milk and beat again.
• Repeat until all the flour and milk have been added. 
• Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases - I used a large ice cream scoop. 
• Bake for approximately 10 minutes and remove from the oven. 
• Prepare your Reese's cups by removing the wrappers and case. 
• After 10 minutes, the tops of the cake will be cooked but the middle is still soft.
• Insert a peanut butter cup into each cupcake, pressing gently.
• Return to the oven and bake for a further 10-12 minutes until cooked.
• Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
• To make the frosting, melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. 
• Beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract, honey and icing sugar until smooth.
• Add the melted chocolate and continue beating until thick and creamy.
• Pipe the chocolate frosting on top of the cupcakes and decorate as desired. 

Apple and toffee cake

This month's AlphaBakes challenge which I am hosting has the theme of 'A'. Apples are the first thing to spring to mind and I started thinking about flavour combinations with apples. I've made lots of apple and cinnamon combinations so I decided to try something a little different yet famiiar - apple and toffee (and fudge). The cake recipe is based on a pear and cinnamon yoghurt cake which worked beautifully for this recipe. I found some mini Cornish fudge chunks which I added to the cake batter and sprinkled on top of the cake to get a lovely caramelisation of the apples. The resulting cake was moist and the sweetness of the toffee paired well with the tartness of the green apple. Everyone really enjoyed this cake and there wasn't a crumb left! 

As mentioned, I'm entering this to AlphaBakes a monthly blogging challenge that I co-host with Caroline from Caroline Makes.  The letter this month is A for apples.  

I'm also entering this to Calendar Cakes hosted this month by Rachel from Dolly Bakes.  Her co-host is Laura from Laura Loves Cakes.  The theme this month is The Great Village Show and this cake would be perfect for that.

 mini cornish fudge chunks, large bramley apple, low fat toffee yoghurt

 sprinkle a handful of mini fudge into the cake batter

 and another handful on top 

 The fudge melts and creates a lovely crunchy, crispy edge

1 large bramley apple - peeled and cored.
250mls  low fat toffee yoghurt
130g brown sugar
80mls vegetable oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
300g flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
mini cornish fudge pieces or toffee sweets

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Grease and line a 20cm cake tin. 
• In a large bowl, mix together the yoghurt, sugar, oil, honey and vanilla. 
• In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda.
• Peel and core the apple. Cut half of it into slices to decorate on top of the cake. Cut a quarter into small chunks to be added to the cake batter. Eat the remaining quarter! 
• Add the flour mixture to the yoghurt mixture and combine gently.
• Stir in the apple chunks and mini cornish fudge pieces (or toffee sweets)  
• Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin.
• Arrange the apple slices on top as shown.
• Sprinkle mini cornish fudge pieces on top.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top is golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Note  - this is an egg free recipe but you could add 2 eggs if you wish.

Afghan Biscuits

An Afghan biscuit is a traditional New Zealand biscuit which contains cornflakes and chocolate, topped with chocolate icing and half a walnut.  The origin of the recipe and name is unknown but apparently it's a Kiwi classic. It tastes like a cross between a brownie and a cookie and I particularly like the crunch of the cornflakes. They're really easy to make and quite addictive to eat so I'm sure I'll be making more of these! 

I'm entering this to AlphaBakes, a monthly blogging challenge where we select a random letter from the alphabet and bake/cook with it. I am hosting this month and Caroline from Caroline Makes will be hosting next month. The letter for April is 'A' for Afghan biscuits. 

 They ran out of small boxes of cornflakes so I had to get the super size one! 

 mixing the flour, cocoa powder and cornflakes

 ready to go in the oven 

 waiting to be iced

 add a small teaspoonful of icing on top

 and finish with half a walnut 

Makes approximately 35 biscuits

For the biscuits

200g butter

100g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

185g plain flour

4 tablespoons cocoa powder 

60g cornflakes

For the icing

125g icing sugar

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

15g butter

2-3 teaspoons hot water

walnut halves to decorate

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Grease and line 2 baking trays
• Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add the vanilla extract. 
• In a separate bowl, sift the flour and cocoa powder and mix together.
• Stir in the cornflakes and mix. 
• Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture and mix well.
• Use a small ice cream scoop to place even sized scoops of dough on the baking tray spaced apart.
• Bake for 10-12 minutes. 
• Allow to cool completely before icing.
• Make the icing by mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl. 
• Place a small teaspoon of icing on top of each biscuit and finish with half a walnut. 

Bin Weevils Birthday Cake

Recently I was asked by a colleague to make a birthday cake for her son. I was hoping that it would be an angry birds cake as I really want to make one but haven't found a suitable occasion yet. Instead, he asked for a Bin Weevils cake. My initial response was "What is that?" If you don't already know, it's a kids online game where you can grow your own garden or create a virtual pet. The characters are weevils from the bin hence the name. I still don't understand it but I did my best to replicate the characters for the cake. Thankfully, the birthday boy was pleased! The cake itself is a vanilla sponge filled with strawberry jam and iced with vanilla buttercream. I created a fence with chocolate fingers and used fondant to re-create the slide, trees, mushroom and weevils.

 strawberry jam in between the sponge 

 green vanilla buttercream icing

chocolate finger fence 

 I bought different coloured icing and some strawberry pencils for the slide but I used fondant in the end 

 I got these candy eyeballs from America - absolutely love them! 

 This is supposed to be Clott, one of the weevils 

 The slide and trees 

 The second weevil - not quite sure what it looks like but I think I'm allowed some artistic license ;) 

Banana, blueberry, cinnamon muffins

This is another simple banana recipe that I got from BBC Food. As usual I had some brown bananas and blueberries at home so I decided to make these muffins for breakfast. It's a really simple mix all in one recipe by the Hairy Bikers and it's ready in about 30 minutes. I love the addition of cinnamon which enhanced the flavours of the fruit and the sugar topping was nice and crunchy. 

 honey, blueberries, cinnamon and bananas

 I sprinkled lots of cinnamon on top!   

 yum!

Recipe from BBC Food by the Hairy Bikers.

Peanut Butter Chip Bundt Cake

I've been on a bit of an American baking spree lately. Probably due to the fact that I unpacked my box which contained all the goodies that I brought back from America last year. I decided to make a simple peanut butter chip bundt cake as I wanted to use my peanut butter topping as a drizzle. I have been patiently waiting for the right moment to open this bottle of peanut butter goodness. If you've not tasted it before, you really have to get yours hands on one as it's divine. Its basically like smooth, melted peanut butter. It worked really well as a topping to the cake. I had extra on my slice :) The cake itself was light and tasty and the peanut butter chips gave the cake a 'sweet and salty' taste which everyone enjoyed.

  amazing peanut butter sauce

 adding peanut butter chips

 ready to go in the oven

 fresh from the oven

 with peanut butter topping

 a slice of heaven

250g butter

230g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

4 eggs

2 tablespoons yoghurt

150g peanut butter chips

peanut butter topping

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 
• Add in the eggs, one at time and mix well.
• Add in the flour.
• Finally stir in the peanut butter chips.
• Pour into a bundt tin and bake for 45 - 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. 
• Allow to cool completely before adding drizzle. 

AlphaBakes April 2013

I hope everyone had a good Easter weekend. Welcome to April's AlphaBakes, if you haven't read March's round up, please head over to Caroline's blog to check out the exciting "I" entries. Now I know we've had a few difficult letters in a row so I was really pleased when I clicked on the random letter generator and it gave me .... A  Get your thinking caps on and start baking/cooking!

The usual rules apply, a quick reminder below. The most important is to email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th April 2013.

1. Post your recipe on your blog and link it to The More than Occasional Baker and Caroline Makes, stating the relevant month's host. If you do not have a blog, email us a picture and a brief description of your entry which we will include in the round-up at the end of the month.

2. You can use your own recipe or someone else's recipe. The recipe can be sweet, savoury or a mixture! Anything goes as long as the random letter is predominantly featured in the recipe as one of the main ingredients or flavours or in the name of the bake itself (i .e . not as a garnish , or using 'flour' for the letter F!) You can also republish old posts/recipes but you must include the information for this challenge as stated in these rules.

3. Add the logo to your post and add 'alphabakes' as a label to your post.

4. Email your entries to alphabakes@gmail.com by midnight (GMT) 25th of each month. Please include:

• Your name (that you want included in the round up or we will use the name of your blog)
• Your blog post URL
• Recipe title
• Photo of recipe (to be included in the round up)

5. You can submit as many entries as you like.

6. You do not have to participate every month to join in.

7. You may submit your entry to other challenges as long as it complies with their rules.

8. If you use twitter, please use the tag #alphabakes and mention @bakingaddict and @Caroline_Makes. We will retweet all those that we see.

9. Have fun! :)