Chocolate Peanut Butter Thanksgiving Cupcakes

Today at work we had a Thanksgiving potluck.  I was excited to try out these cupcakes with Nutter Butter turkeys that I’d found on Pinterest.  I’m a big fan of any creative themed treats – last year I made these cinnamon roll turkeys for Thanksgiving breakfast and some of my favorite cupcakes were these tropical themed ones from a girls’ night I had awhile back. 

These were actually pretty easy to make.  The hardest part was finding candy corn this time of year – now that Halloween is over, all the treats are Christmas themed.  Luckily, Lance tracked some down at Big Lots.

I cheated a bit by using a boxed mix for the cupcakes, but I added chocolate chips to the mix and made the frosting from scratch. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Thanksgiving Cupcakes (adapted from Mommy Savers)

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 1 box chocolate cake mix, plus any ingredients needed on the back of the box
• ½ cup chocolate chips
• Candy corn
• Nutter Butter cookies
• Mini M&Ms
• Candy eyes
• Craisins

Frosting Ingredients: (this actually made WAY more frosting that I needed…next time I’d reduce by a least half)

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 8-oz package cream cheese
• 1 T vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 T cocoa powder

Edible Glue: (Yield 1 cup – again, you can half this recipe & still have plenty…)

• 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• 1 large egg white
• ½ t lemon juice 

Directions:

1. Prepare cupcakes according to the box, adding in chocolate chips.    

2. While the cupcakes bake, prepare you edible glue by mixing powdered sugar with an egg white & lemon juice.  One the icing is thick and smooth, use it as a glue to attach the candy eyes, mini M&Ms, and craisins to the Nutter Butter cookies.

3. Use a mixer to beat together the butter and cream cheese for the frosting.  Add in the vanilla and peanut butter and blend until combined.  Slowly add in the powdered sugar and cocoa powder until fully blended. 

4.  Frost the cupcakes then gently press the Nutter Butters and candy corn into the tops.  Then enjoy how cute & delicious they are!

The Artistic Whisk – St. Petersburg, FL

 

Lance has left most of the wedding planning up to me since I’ve got more of an opinion about most of it – but one thing he was really excited to be part of was the cake tasting!

I went to a bridal show back in June and honestly, I wasn’t impressed by most of the cakes I tried.  I know fondant can make some really pretty designs, but I just don’t think it tastes good.  And surprisingly most of the cakes we sampled from the bridal show venders were pretty bland or dry. 

But luckily we stumbled upon Jovana’s booth for The Artistic Whisk while we were there.  The name sounded familiar because another engaged friend, Padma, had just done a tasting there a few weeks prior.  She had samples of her chocolate peanut butter cake and it was amazing!  (it’s actually not the cupcake pictured above…that was a competitor’s chocolate peanut butter that looked prettier than it tasted…) 

Jovana was just about to get married herself, so we arranged a cake tasting once she got back from her honeymoon to try her other flavors. 

Her bakery is in a warehouse strip in St. Pete – so luckily not too far from our venue.  She uses all natural flavors and has a pretty impressive background – graduating from Le Cordon Bleu and baking for Tampa’s Marriot Waterside, Clearwater’s Sandpearl Resort, the Ritz Carlton in Naples, and Innisbrook Golf and Spa Resort in Palm Harbor. 

My mom and dad joined Lance and me for the tasting.  She brought us all champagne while we walked through 21 different flavors and rated our favorites.  Luckily we can pick different flavors for each cake tier since it was really hard to narrow down which ones we liked best – they were ALL amazing.  And each had homemade fillings and different types of buttercreams to compliment the cake.   

My favorites were the orange creamsicle, almond raspberry, coconut with rum roasted pineapple, bananas foster, carrot cake, Bailey’s macadamia, Boston cream, chocolate chip cannoli, German chocolate, mint chocolate chip, mocha, and the chocolate peanut butter (I know, that’s a long list!) 

The four of us narrowed it down, and we decided on the coconut with rum roasted pineapple, chocolate peanut butter, and Bailey’s macadamia.  Plus she adds in a complimentary cake topper for us to enjoy on our 1 year anniversary, which will be the chocolate peanut butter.  We discussed designs and sketched up a plan based on the Pinterest ideas I’d sent her. 

I’m so excited that we found Jovana and I’d highly recommend her to any of you that need a cake for a special occasion.  Looking forward to the big day next April!

You can reach Jovana at theartisticwhisk@gmail.com or call her at (727) 560-5662 – her bakery is by appointment only.

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Hunahpu's Imperial Stout

 

Yesterday, I saw on The Revolution Ice Cream Company’s facebook page that they had created a new ice cream flavor – Cinnamon Brown Sugar Ice Cream with Cigar City’s Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout. 

Just in case you don’t know about this beer, it is Cigar City’s most sought after beer.  They brew it just one day a year, and release it the second Saturday in March at the brewery.  The Hunahpu’s Day event has become so popular that they had to start charging $200 per ticket to keep the crowds under control.  The beer made this list of The 10 Most Traveled For Beers in America and it has a perfect 100 score on Ratebeer. 

It gets its name from the legendary Hun Hunahpu of Mayan mythology.  Hunahpu was slain Dark Lords of the underworld, and his sacrificed body morphed into a cocoa tree, with a cocoa pod as his head.  One of the Dark Lord’s daughters, Xquic, picked a fruit from the tree and it spat on her, impregnating her with twin sons.  The twins grew up and defeated the Dark Lords to avenge their father, then transformed into the sun and the moon. 

The stout is aged on cocoa nibs, ancho and pasilla chiles, cinnamon, and Madagascar vanilla beans.  Unfortunately with it being so rare and the event being so expensive, I’ve never had the chance to taste it, but it sounds incredible. 

 

The line at the ice cream parlor was longer than I’ve ever seen it.  It seems that the word spread about their one batch of the cinnamon flavor – although it wasn’t marked on the board with the rest of them.  Lance and I each got a scoop of it – plus I had a scoop of their Mocha Mint (coffee ice cream with Thin Mint cookies), and Lance had a scoop of the What’s Up Nutter Fudger? (chocolate peanut butter ice cream with chunks of nutter bars). 

 

All our flavors were delicious.  I’m glad we were able to try the special flavor because the stout made the cinnamon ice cream even richer.  I still wish I could try a sip of the beer on its own, but the ice cream was great. 

If you want to read more about The Revolution Ice Cream, check out this post from last September.  They constantly have events and come up with new flavors, so like their facebook page if you want to stay updated.  Coming up on Sunday, April 12^th from 1 – 7pm, they will have food trucks, live music, a bounce house, and BOGO ice cream all to benefit the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities (CARD) at USF, so if you’re free that day, go eat some ice cream for a good cause. 

The Revolution Ice Cream Company is located at 220 W Brandon Blvd #104, Brandon, FL 33511 and is open 12pm – 10pm Monday through Saturday and 1pm – 9pm on Sunday.

tbt Easter Cheesecakes

 

Since 2008, I've had a tradition of baking a cheesecake every year for Easter.  It started when I was in college – we didn't get a long weekend for the holiday, so I’d stay up in Gainesville and celebrate with my friends.  Those first two years I made the same flavor – apple caramel using this recipe. 

 

 

In 2010 I decided to switch it up and try out this amaretto cheesecake.  It came from the book Cheesecake Extraordinaire – the recipe is outlined here on Melinda Lee’s food blog – but I added more slivered almonds to the top.     

 

After that, I kept up the tradition with my family.  In 2011 I made a chocolate raspberry flavor (and at that point I had a better camera too!) I followed this recipe from Cuisinart, but tweaked the crust to be a bit thicker by using 1½ cups crushed pretzels, 6 T butter, and 4 T brown sugar.  I also added a drizzle of chocolate and fresh raspberries.  

 

 

The next one in 2012 was super decadent – chocolate peanut butter.  It was adapted from this recipe from Taste of Home, but I added some crushed pretzels to the crust and decorated the top with Cadbury mini eggs.   Just a small sliver of this one was a total sugar bomb.  

In 2013 I made a pumpkin spice latte cheesecake adapted from Sprinkle Bakes.  If you plan to top it with powdered sugar stripes, make sure to do it right before you serve it, otherwise they will just soak into the cheesecake and disappear.  

 

It was really easy to add the stripes and made it looks super fancy!  Just cut strips of parchment paper and lay them over the cake, then dust sugar over. 

 

Last year in 2014, I made a carrot cake cheesecake, which I think is my favorite yet!  It was adapted from Secret Copycat Restaurant Recipes – which copied it from the Cheesecake Factory.   Carrot cake is my favorite – especially with cream cheese frosting.  I added some shredded carrots and chopped walnuts to the top.  The crushed pineapple kept the cake nice and moist. 

I’d love to just repeat last year’s recipe again – but I’m trying to bake a different flavor each year.  Lance’s sister Brandi and her husband Jeremy will be in town from Idaho this year which will be exciting!  Any suggestions for what kind I should make this year?