Taste & Create: Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Peanut Fudge Frosting

Taste & Create is  blogging event I participate in on an (almost) monthly basis... my post a reliably a day or two late... which is a reflection on Life and its tendency to get in the way and my own, blogging laziness - the actual process of reading my partner's blog and planning what I'm going to make is a lot of fun! That's why I keep coming back... that, and I love getting the feedback from someone else trying out my recipes.

So, if you're reading this, and you're a blogger too - you should sign up! The people are really lovely and it's a lot of fun! Also - it forces a person to post at least once a month... encouragement some of us need more than others... *ahem*

This month I was paired with Carol of No Reason Needed... her blog is a combination of food, family and Life - it's a fun and interesting read!

I had planned to make her Chicken Tetrazzini with Crescent Rolls, but I was called into work that day and my mummy made the Tetrazzini sans crescent rolls for me... but I couldn't submit something I didn't make! That would be cheating!

...So I kept on reading... and eventually stumbled across Peanut Butter Cupcakes SOLD!!!

OM NOM NOM!!!

Now, I didn't have any chocolate to melt to make the ganache suggested by Carol's daughter Dakota, so I decided to create my own peanut butter fudge frosting... and wow. Just. Wow. I'll share the recipe for that with you guys too!

Back to the original recipe - I did my best to follow instructions! I did, however make only a third of the recipe which is four cupcakes! The perfect number for two people!

In my thirding - I misread the quantity of baking soda called for and accidentally put in the full amount... I've corrected this for my version down below though... and that is the only factor that spoils these rather delicious cupcakes! I'll be making them again for sure, and I think you should too!

A Decorated Cake

My Psychological Synaptic Transmission Cake

This is not a recipe. I used a boxed cake mix. This is a suggestion as to how a student might decorate a cake...

First - buy a packet cake mix... this is cheaper than if you have to start totally from scratch and don't plan to bake at all in the immediate future. Thus, you have more money for decorations.

This cake was a packet chocolate (note the term "packet"... I didn't even splash out for a boxed cake mix... although, in future, I probably would) with some added vanilla in an effort to make it feel more homemade-ish.

The white "frosting" in the background is, in fact, white chocolate which I melted and spread over - I wanted the decorations to be sufficiently durable that I could cover the whole cake in cling film and take it to my exam without worrying about ruining my design. If I were at home with my fancy thermometers I would have bought "real" white chocolate and tempered it - but these were just melting buttons.

The dendrites (purple), terminal bouton (purple), vesicles (pink)and transporter (blue, cropped out of photo - woops!) of my neuron as well as the words are from standard supermarket gel pens/tube-y things.... The neurotransmitter are 100's and 1000's (I've decided that it's a serotonin cake, 'cause all the insulin from the sugar in the cake will assist with tryptophan crossing the Blood Brain Barrier) And the soma (purple berry lolly), axon hillock (red berry lolly) and myelin sheath (white milk bottle lollies) are all gummy lollies... found in a cheap party mix bag of lollies... I got to eat the rest! :)

And that's how I decorate on the cheap! The cake was much admired and well received... All my friends and I did well in Psyc that year!