Butterfinger-y Cupcake

Butterfinger Cupcake

I make a pretty yummy dessert around Halloween time that is a "homemade version" of my most favorite candy bar. . . the Butterfinger! Now that I am in this cupcake mode,  I should try to make a cupcake that reminds me of that oh so fabulous candy bar. I was trying to figure out how to do it, when a friend told me she made a healthful Butterfinger shake and she used butterscotch pudding mix. I thought it was crazy, but I tried to make my own version, and lo and behold, it tasted just like a Butterfinger! I thought I will try to find a really great peanut butter cupcake recipe and add some butterscotch pudding mix to it. I found a fabulous starter recipe here. And bonus, it has a really good chocolate buttercream frosting recipe too!

As soon as they were cool enough, I frosted this yumminess. I will be totally honest, I am not one of those really good people who never taste a batter because of the raw eggs. I know, totally not OK, but I did it anyway :) When I tasted the batter, I thought the cupcake would be more "Reese's Peanut butter cup like". After it was baked and iced. I think it had a definite butterfinger taste. I made 18 out of this recipe, and I frosted 13 in this way. I didn't have enough to finish doing the little swirl, so for the remaining 5, I just slathered it on and then garnished it with crushed Butterfingers--I just barely had enough icing for this. I didn't even have enough left over to eat by itself later ;) This was a yummy cupcake. The cake itself was a little on the crumbly side, but it was oh so delicious! As soon as I got them done, I immediately shared this with the teachers at school. It was perfect timing. ..  most of them were finishing up lunch.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cups butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 4oz package butterscotch pudding mix

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and prepare cupcake pan. I use liners. The Wilton Brand is OK, but I prefer the Reynolds brand.

Sift flour and baking powder together in a large bowl. Add in eggs and sugar and combine with an electric mixer. (It begins to look really lumpy, but don't worry, it will smooth out.) While mixing, add in the butter, then the vanilla.

You can use the non sugar-free option, this is just what I had available.

Mix in the peanut butter. . . stream in the milk. The last thing I added was my pudding mix. And I blended it together. I used my "handy dandy" Pampered Chef scoop, and I put 1 scoop in each, and I made 18. I baked these for about 20 minutes.

Frosting:
1/4 cup shortening (I use Butter Flavored Crisco)
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp Vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
2 TBSP milk

I put this together like I do all my buttercream recipes. I start by blending the butter. Then on this one I added the cocoa. I always do my milk and vanilla next. And my last ingredient is my powdered sugar. I do sift my powdered sugar, I think it makes a huge difference. I can always tweak my recipe a bit--add in more sugar or milk based on the consistency I want. This recipe would easily frost 12, but not quite all 18 since I like to pipe my frosting using a piping bag and a large tip (1M).

 Since I didn't quite have enough to pipe it on all the rest, I just "smeared" the frosting on top. I sprinkled crushed a Butterfinger candy bar on top to garnish.

Cupcakes with crushed Butterfingers on top.

Super Bowl cupcakes!

Super Bowl cupcakes

Since it is Super Bowl weekend, I thought some football "shaped" cupcakes were in order. Yesterday I had made some chocolate cupcakes for Groundhogs's Day (click groundhog's day for the link) but I didn't use all the batter for them. I decided half groundhog, half football. This is the recipe I followed below that I pretty much copied and pasted from my previous blog.

 Cake Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)
3 tablespoons softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup milk

Cake Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 and prepare cupcake pan. (I used cupcake liners, but you can spray it with a non-stick cooking spray like Pam. If I am not using my favorite Reynolds brand liners, I will spray my cupcake papers to make the cupcake come out better). Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa and set aside.


In another bowl, blend the butter and sugar. The original recipe says to cream it together, but with that little butter and that much sugar, it is quite difficult to get it light and fluffy. Just get it mixed well. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well. Stir in vanilla. Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk. Pour into prepared muffin/cupcake tin about half full. These rise nicely so you don't need to over fill them.

I had seen another cute idea on Pinterest that said to put a Hershey Kiss in the middle before you bake it, and when it is out; the cupcake will be "lava like." I thought I would try that, so before putting them in the oven, I plopped a kiss in the middle.(Let me tell you, if that is going to work, you must have to eat it immediately after you pull it out of the oven, because by the time it cooled, it held its shape and was soft. By the next day, it was about the "hardness"--is that even a word?--of a kiss out of the bag).

If you look hard enough, you can see the candy center

Bake for about 20 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

I put a chocolate buttercream icing I found inspiration here. Since I was piping this into a football look, I thought I needed it to be a bit stiffer. I added more powdered sugar. I made my stripes with a little bit of butter cream icing that I had from a previous day that was not tinted any color yet.


The recipe I used for chocolate butter cream icing is as follows:

5 TBSP butter (I had that much of a stick leftover from my chocolate cake recipe)
2 cups powdered sugar (this is an approximate, I think it might have been just under 2 cups)
4 TBSP cocoa
2-3 TBSP milk (depending on how thin or thick you want it)
1 TSP vanilla

Pretty simply, I sifted my powdered sugar (started with a cup) and cocoa together and mixed with the butter. I added the milk and vanilla. I realized that while it was fine, I wanted it to be stiffer, so I began to add powdered sugar to get to the consistency that I wanted. I used tip #32 and did a little zig zag pattern across--making it appear to be slightly oval shaped by doing a tiny bit at the top and bottom I just love the illusions you can do with icing. I just put the white butter cream icing in a plastic baggie and snipped the end off to make the laces on the football.

It was fun and easy, cute and scrumptious! It obviously wouldn't have to be Super Bowl weekend. . .Late August, early September would also be a perfect time for these too. Enjoy the Super Bowl, or if you aren't watching the Super Bowl, just enjoy the cupcakes!!!!