Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

I'm just going to come right out and say it ... I LOVE peanut butter. If I ever developed a peanut allergy, you might as well just shoot me. A good snack for me is a jar of peanut butter and a spoon.

I've made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream many times ... and they never disappoint. So this time I thought I'd make a peanut butter cupcake. And what goes better with peanut butter ... other than chocolate ... then jelly.

This is what I came up with ...

I used Martha Stewart's peanut butter cupcake recipe.

Peanut Butter Cupcake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
3 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Make cupcakes as directed in Basic Cupcake How-To, adding peanut butter before adding eggs. use sour cream and vanilla as wet ingredients.

Peanut Butter Buttercream
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp heavy cream

Cream butter and peanut butter. Add powdered sugar and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl, mix on high speed for a minute, then add extract. Mix again before adding the heavy cream. Mix on high speed for 3 minutes.

Assembly
Put a dollop of jam (I used Smucker's Strawberry jam) on top of each cupcake. Then swirl the peanut butter buttercream around the jam.

These cupcakes were amazing. Nobody in my family could seem to eat more than one ... and then a big glass of milk was needed. I will definitely have to make these again.