Peanut Butter Cupcakes!

I have a feeling that peanut butter is one of those “love it or hate it” foods (in the same way that Marmite is!), but we all love it here, in which case I thought why not incorporate it into a cupcake recipe? I have memories of one of my sisters liking nothing better than peanut butter on toast as a quick snack when she arrived home from school and my own children carried on that tradition with enthusiasm. When they were toddlers they loved a finger of toast spread with peanut butter and nothing much has changed since then!

These ingredients should be sufficient for about 12 cupcakes:

2 large free range eggs
the weight of the eggs (in their shells) in self-raising flour, but with 25g of it replaced by ground almonds (for example, my eggs weighed 140g so I used 25g of ground almonds and 115g of self raising flour)
the weight of the eggs in soft brown sugar
the weight of the eggs in softened butter
1 tablespoon of peanut butter, either crunchy or smooth
2 tablespoons of milk

The method is very straightforward:

preheat the oven to 180°C
line a muffin/cupcake tray with paper cases
put all the ingredients into a roomy mixing bowl and beat them together well until the mixture is smooth and creamy. The mixture needs to be a soft dropping consistency, so if need be give it an extra splash of milk

divide the mixture between the paper cases and bake the cakes for about 20 minutes, or until a light golden brown and springy to the touch
remove the cakes from the tin and put them on a wire rack to cool

In the meantime, make the icing:

into a roomy bowl measure 300g of icing sugar, 180g of smooth peanut butter (crunchy will do if you don’t have any smooth), 180g of softened butter and 2 tablespoons of milk

beat everything together until the icing is smooth and creamy
if need be, add an extra splash of milk if the icing seems a bit too thick
if you’re nifty with an icing bag, pipe the icing onto the tops of the cupcakes
if you’re definitely not nifty with an icing bag, spread the icing onto the top of the cakes and give it a few swirly patterns with a fork. That will do just as well!
sprinkle a few salted peanuts onto the tops of the cakes, together with a grating of chocolate