It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Growing up I never used to have proper peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. My parents didn't buy grape jelly for some reason; they preferred to have marmalade and strawberry jam in the house. So our peanut butter sandwiches were with marmalade or strawberry jams.

Sometimes, on very rare occasions, they would buy Goobers® for me and my brothers and we would be ecstatic. As I grew older, I grew used to the different jams with my peanut butter sandwiches, and didn't mind apricot or guava or even good old strawberry jam with my peanut butter. One thing that I grew out of was the taste and texture of over-processed peanut butter and preferred natural, no sugar added stuff. This was primarily due to my living abroad in a country where peanut butter was just ground up roasted peanuts - no bells and whistles attached. This is my favorite kind of peanut butter to use for baking because, well, it's peanutier (not a word I know)and it doesn't add anything other than a good, rich peanut butter flavor to a batter, frosting, filling. And it's better for you than processed, sugar-filled peanut butter.

This rambling introduction brings me to the point of this post - peanut butter and jelly cupcakes. Which I made as a ode to my lack of true peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (and also because they are really cool).

There are 3 components to these cupcakes: the cake, the filling and the frosting - all of which are modifications to other recipes I've worked on/used before.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

Ingredients
1 recipe for peanut butter cake (use natural peanut butter versus processed and you'll have a better batter guaranteed)
1 cup of grape jelly, melted and cooled
1 recipe for peanut butter and jelly frosting (see below)

Assembly
Bake your cupcakes as you would and let cool. Fill a piping bag with a No. 2 or 3 round tip with the melted grape jelly. Insert tip in middle of cupcakes and fill until you see the jelly poking through the top of the cupcake.



Using another piping bag with a shell tip, fill with frosting and pipe onto cupcakes.



And voila - peanut butter jelly time!

So, here's the frosting recipe I created for this cupcake:

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks), room temperature unsalted butter
2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons natural no sugar added peanut butter
1 tablespoon melted grape jelly

Directions
n a large bowl, cream the butter until it's light and fluffy. Add the confectioner's sugar gradually, beating the sugar into the butter. Add the peanut butter and grape jelly. Continue to beat until the ingredients are well incorporated and the mixture is double in volume. Makes about 2 1/2 cups.