- Hey, I'm John Kanell and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making some amazingly delicious
peanut butter cupcakes.
So let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350.
I also aligned two muffin tins with 18 papers
'cause this makes 18 cupcakes.
Now in a big bowl, I'm adding one and three quarter cups
or 210 grams of all purpose flour.
And I'm using a sifter today
because I've had some clumps that are bothering me.
Sifting is always optional.
To buff things up, I want one and a half teaspoons
of baking powder and a quarter teaspoon of baking soda.
I want half a teaspoon of salt.
I'm using kosher sea salt because I love it
and sea salt is very nice and mild
as far as salts go.
This gets added in after the sifting
because the grains are too big for my sifter.
There we go. Oh my gosh, the lumps.
Now, half a teaspoon of salt.
Grab a whisk, my scale is done.
And it's time to whisk things up.
Get all those leavening agents and salt nicely distributed.
These cupcakes, by the way, are so soft,
full of peanut butter flavor,
and the frosting is like a symphony of deliciousness.
Alright, set that aside.
Grab another bowl
and we're gonna get the wet ingredients together.
Just kidding about the scale.
There's sour cream in this recipe
and the sour cream is slightly acidic
and acids will give you a tender crumb
to any cake you add them to.
And they also have like a little bit of tang
for a nice depth of flavor.
So in a separate bowl,
I want half a cup or 120 grams of sour cream.
I also want two-thirds of a cup
or 177 grams of creamy peanut butter.
Whenever we're using peanut butter for baking,
I suggest you use like a processed peanut butter.
It'll have stabilizers in it
so it's nice and creamy right out of the jar.
If you wanna use a natural peanut butter,
that's totally fine,
but you are gonna mix your little heart out
so that it is creamy throughout,
it's not too oily, it's not too solid, it's just right.
I also want one and a quarter cups
or 275 grams of light brown sugar.
Brown sugar has a wonderful extra little bit of flavor
so I love using it whenever I can.
I'm breaking up all the clumps with my hand
because those are just harder to mix
and we want everything to be silky smooth.
If you have a clump of sugar that's stuck in the batter
it'll just melt during baking
and you'll have like a big empty sweet void.
These cupcakes are great to do with little kids by the way,
because they're all stirred together
so there's no mixer involved for the batter,
just for the frosting.
Now my scale is done for real.
I'm adding in three quarters of a cup
or 180 mils of whole milk.
I also want one third of a cup or 80 mils of veggie oil.
Any neutral oil will work
so if you want to use like avocado
or sunflower or rapeseed oil, that's all fine.
The nice thing about using oil in a cake
is that that it can come straight from the fridge
and be really soft.
Almost every baked good should be refrigerated
and if you are leaving them out on the counter,
delicious, amazing.
But if they're coming from the fridge,
all the butter based cakes and cupcakes, et cetera,
are gonna be a little bit firm
and you kind of wanna microwave them almost to warm them up
and to get them to be nice and soft.
I'm also adding in one large egg
and two teaspoons of vanilla extract.
We're just gonna whisk these together
until they're nice and smooth.
The peanut butter and the sour cream are going to give you
the most resistance.
Everything else is gonna be easy breezy.
Just break it up to give it a start and then mix away.
Bring back your flour mixture.
You can create a little bit of a well in the middle
just so it has a place to get poured.
I'm gonna pour the peanut butter mixture in
and just whisk it until it is just combined.
Do not overmix your batter.
And I love that this is all by hand
because that's where you have the most control.
Going nice and slow, whisking as I go.
Ooh, look at this.
Just a couple rocks of brown sugar.
Mm mm mm.
These are really firm ones.
I don't know how those slipped my glance.
(bell dings)
Gaze.
(bell dings)
I don't know how I missed those.
Just hunt and peck around for any little bits of flour
lurking towards the bottom.
And once it looks like those flower pockets are gone,
just give it just a good mix for like a few seconds.
Time to transfer these to a cupcake paper.
This batter has like major peanut butter or caramel notes.
It's so good.
You want about a quarter of a cup per paper
so scoop that right in.
Just try to not overfill your cupcake papers.
You should end up with about 18 cupcakes.
I, as usual overfilled some, so I have 16 instead.
Hmm.
These guys are ready to go into the oven.
350 for about 22 minutes or until
a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
In you go.
My cupcakes are out of the oven and they're cooling
but I wanna show you something really interesting.
This batch baked in the bottom third of my oven,
this batch baked in the top third
and they're both delicious
but the top third one has a more golden color on top
with a larger set of cracks.
This is the opposite.
Lighter color, softer on the top, and small cracks.
But the bottoms are totally different.
So much darker, much lighter and softer.
They're all gonna be delicious.
If you want to have them completely consistent,
bake exactly in the middle.
But to be honest, I actually love the cracks.
This is a little bit hard, just like a peanut butter cookie.
It's like almost a little bit crisp
just on the very edge and pillowy soft inside.
I might have been snacking.
While those cool, let's make our frosting.
I want want one cup or 264 grams of creamy peanut butter
right into the bowl of my stand mixer.
I have just enough peanut butter. That was 254.
Now I want half a cup of softened unsalted butter.
Okay, we're gonna mix this up
just until it is creamy, smooth,
and I don't see any little bits of butter hanging out.
Medium high for about a minute.
(mixer whirs)
While that mixes, you're gonna want to grab
two cups of powdered sugar and you can sift it if you want,
and six tablespoons of cream.
That's a little bit over a third of a cup.
I think.
It's exactly a third of a cup.
My peanut butter is much softer than the butter
so I'm just gonna scrape the bowl down
and really let this mix for a minute or two
so that it gets nice and smooth.
I see a few little bits of butter hanging around
and I don't like it.
(playful music) (mixer whirs)
Mi casa, mis reglas.
(mixer whirs)
That's much better. Take a look.
Creamy and so smooth.
That on your toast, let me tell you. That's good.
All right.
With the mix running on low, I'm gonna add in
about half a cup of powdered sugar.
Let that mix in. Add another half a cup.
So I'm adding four batches of sugar for a total of two cups.
Little bit more.
(mixer whirs)
You can always go fast for a second
just to throw everything off of the beater
and then go back to slow.
Sometimes it just accumulates inside of that whisk.
Another half.
I'm gonna go get cream.
(upbeat music)
(mixer whirs)
Last half cup of sugar.
Keep mixing.
If you notice anything on the sides,
scrape the bowl down occasionally.
This is coming out pretty clean
so I don't have to worry about that.
The sugar's all incorporated but if you take a look,
this is so thick.
No, no, no, we don't like that.
We want it to be kind of loose and have more slack to it.
So I'm gonna add in teaspoon of vanilla.
That's a little better.
Gives you some more flavor too.
And I'm gonna add in my six tablespoons
or a third of a cup of heavy cream.
Increase speed to medium high.
(mixer whirs)
Oh. Ah!
Increase speed to medium high
and we're gonna start mixing this up
so it's beautiful, light and fluffy.
This looks great on the inside.
The outside however needs a scrape.
So scrape the bowl down.
Oh my gosh, I could eat this stuff by the spoonful.
Mm mm mm!
So mix on medium high
until it's light and fluffy and smooth.
(mixer whirs)
Okay, this looks great.
Look at that.
Gorgeous, light, and it's perfectly sweet.
It is definitely not too sweet at all,
just the right amount.
Oh my gosh.
Let's pipe this up.
Grab a delicious cupcake
and now I'm going to just pipe however I want.
So start in the center, move out, and for some drama,
I'm gonna add a little bit more on top.
And just like that, my cupcake is ready to enjoy.
If you want less frosting and more cake,
you can just do a really simple rosette just like that.
Also looks pretty and it's nice and flat.
It is time for a bite.
So grab that bottom, sandwich it up.
Look at that.
That is a delicious mouthful.
Mm.
And there's, that is pure peanut butter flavor,
like slaps you across the face in the best way possible.
Pillowy soft, silky on top.
You've gotta make this recipe.
And if you liked this video, check out my cupcake playlist.