Eating With Ayla

I LOVE birthdays, whether it’s mine (preferred) or anyone else!  I get very excited, like countdown to the day type of excited.  Birth day is birth week and all of that.  I’m basically 5 years old again with my level of excitement, but I figure it is one day of the year that is totally yours so enjoy it!!! Get as much as you can out of it and have fun with family and friends 🙂

So in the spirits of birthdays, a friend had his 30th recently – big deal and all of that.   A great reason to bake something delicious (though one doesn’t really need reasons to bake other than satisfying your stomach).  I hadn’t made cupcakes in a longggg time so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

One of my favourite combos in the food sphere is chocolate and peanut butter.  They work SO well together.  I could probably just melt chocolate and peanut butter together and just eat that straight up.   So of this particular person, I decided to make chocolate chip cupcakes with a peanut butter frosting.

This cupcake recipe is really good, the cupcake is so moist and soft.  The added in chocolate chips give it an even better texture and surprise taste.  When it comes out of the oven and you bite into the cupcake (doesn’t even need frosting) it is HEAVENLY.  I cannot express the delight I had at one am when they were out of the oven and I *had* to try a bite (just to make sure they tasted alright…).  Yes, one am.  I had a day off of work for Eid and basically spent the whole day sleeping on either my bed or the couch.  So by midnight I was ready to party .. in the kitchen.

Without any further stories about me sleeping, here is the recipe for the cupcake.

Ingredients: Makes about 18 cupcakes 

1 1/3 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup hot strong coffee
1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F (176 C).  And line your muffin tins.  Spray the liners with some cooking spray.

Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa and salt into a medium bowl.

Beat the sugar and butter into a large bowl until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and beat until well incorporated.  Add in the vanilla and beat some more!

After this, add in half of the flour mixture into the wet mix until just incorporated. Then the coffee, beat again.  Then the rest of the flour mixture.

Let the batter stand until it is cooled and slightly thickened.  It will be quite wet, which gives the moist quality 🙂

Add in the chocolate chips.  Next step – putting in the batter into the muffin tins (about 1/4 cup of batter in each).

In the oven for 21-23 minutes.  Once cooled (after eating one plain) – time to frost with the following Peanut Butter Frosting Recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of softened butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 tablespoons of milk (more may be needed)
2 cups icing sugar (maybe a bit less, as it can get quite sweet)

Instructions: You can just use a whisk and it will be fine, but if you want life to be easier, use a mixer.

Mix up the butter and peanut butter until nice and smooth.  Then gradually add in the icing sugar and it will start getting thick.  As that starts to happen, add in the milk one tablespoon at a time.  Get it to the consistency you like, mix it for a couple of minutes until nice and fluffy.

SPREAD and eat.