It’s national peanut butter day! In honor of the day I made some peanut butter frosting to put on my chocolate cupcakes. You’re probably about to lose some respect for me here but I should just go ahead and let you know that I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter and chocolate. I’ll eat a Reese’s every once in a while and I like peanut butter, but the combination of the two just isn’t something I will seek out. Even though I don’t like peanut butter and chocolate, other people do so it’s always good to have a good recipe on hand when needed.

For the actual cupcakes I used my favorite devils food recipe. One of the things I don’t like about a lot of peanut butter recipes is how thick it is. I wanted a frosting that was really fluffy and light, which you can usually tell based on coloring. The Taste of Home frosting recipe looked like it would be perfect so I decided to give it a go.

Even if you use a box cake mix making, making frosting from scratch is easy and makes a huge difference taste wise. Almost all buttercream recipes use some variation of confectioners sugar, butter, vanilla, milk, and then whatever else you add to change the flavor; this recipe used equal parts butter and peanut butter.

The key to a light frosting is to make sure it’s whipped really well. Be sure to let the mixer run for a few minutes to ensure everything is mixed well and if you use the whisk attachment on your mixer it helps add air into the frosting to give it a silky texture. Take a spatula and get a little of the icing out and if you can get medium-soft peaks that hold it’s best for piping. If the peaks are there, but seem stiff you need to add a little milk as it’ll be tough to pipe. Too soft though and your piping won’t hold.

As a final touch, I cut up some Reese’s cups for garnish and they really looked nice!

Baking Ease	10
Time Spent	10
Taste	10
Visual	10

Recipe Used: Taste of Home