Thursday Recipe - Peanut Butter Cupcakes and Chocolate Frosting

This recipe comes from America's Best Recipes 1990 Edition. It's attributed to Créme de LA Coast, Small World Guild—Childrens Hospital of Orange County, CA. Page 105, if you're keeping track. (This book was one of my mom's cookbooks she passed on when she cleaned out her kitchen. And I found it for sale on Amazon? You can find anything on the internet. Except the repair and maintenance manual for a 1970s Wurlitzer electric organ, but that's a different story. If you know where the manual is, please let me know. I'd love to fix my organ.)

This is super easy and very tasty with or without frosting. The cake is moist and tender without being crumbly. It's a different flavor for cake, too.

I thought for sure I'd posted my recipe for chocolate frosting, but I haven't. So here's a good one.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

1 3/4 c. flour
2 t. baking powder (or use 1 1/4 t. baking soda because you find out halfway through measuring everything that you're out of baking powder and the roads are too slippery and snowy to drive to the store.)
1/2 t. salt
3/4 c. sugar
1 c. milk (If it's going sour that's a bonus. The extra acidity will help if you end up using baking soda. We've gone from 2-3 gallons a week to about 1 gallon a month since my two oldest boys moved out. My hubby is the only one who can still drink it and I rarely use it in cooking.)
1/2 c. peanut butter (The recipe calls for creamy, but I used crunchy. I like the nut bits in the cupcakes.)
1/4 c. butter
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla

Dump everything in a mixing bowl. Beat on low speed for about a minute until blended. Scrape the sides then turn the speed up to high and beat for 2 more minutes. Spoon into muffin tins lined with paper baking cups. (I used a combination of miniature muffin size and regular size. The recipe made 24 mini and 11 regular.) Bake at 350°F for 15 minutes for mini and 18-20 for regular size. Cool on wire racks.

Frost with chocolate frosting or make them PB&J cupcakes:
Drop 1 t. jam into each cupcake before baking. Bake as directed. Strawberry or raspberry would be really good.

Chocolate Frosting

1/4 c. butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese (half of a block)
1/2 c. cocoa powder
1 t. vanilla
2 - 3 c. powdered sugar
1/4 c. milk

Cream butter and cream cheese until blended and soft. Add cocoa powder, vanilla, and 2 c. powdered sugar. Blend on low speed until mostly mixed. It will be dry and probably a bit lumpy. Pour in milk. Beat on low speed until mixture loosens up and starts creaming. Beat on high speed for at least 3 minutes. Add powdered sugar 1/2 c. at a time, beating well after each, until desired consistency is reached. Keep any leftover frosting in the fridge. You can eat it with a spoon and pretend it's fudge if you want.