Classic Vanilla With Peanut Butter Filling Cupcakes

I had some extra white buttercream from the last birthday project. So I decided to make some cupcakes and use the buttercream for topping. I was in an upbeat mood yesterday and I decided to try new things on my cupcakes. I chose to fill my cupcakes with some peanut butter filling. I modified some truffle making recipes to this delicious, creamy filling.

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

1 cup salted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 3/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
1 cup milk
2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Cream the butter on high speed mixer for 30 seconds.

2. Add in the sugar and beat further for 3 minutes.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time, beat for about 30 seconds after adding in each egg.

4. Fold in the flour, baking powder and soda until thoroughly mixed.

5. Pour in the milk and vanilla and stir until a smooth batter is formed.

6. Pour the batter into lined muffin tins 1/2 full. This cake rise like crazy, so be careful not to fill more than 2/3 of the cup.

7. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes on 350 F. Always test cake for doneness.

Note : This cake tasted great, but the cake pulls away from the paper cups upon cooling. Not a good thing for putting fillings in. I definitely won't use this recipe for cupcakes next time.

Peanut Butter Filling

1/2 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter

1 1/2 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoon milk

1. Cream the butter and peanut butter until thoroughly mixed.

2. Add in the milk and mix them again until it forms a creamy texture, not too stiff and not too runny. Have a taste at the finish product, if you want it sweeter, you can always add some sifted confectioners' sugar to the mixture.

Putting Them All Together

1. After the cakes are slightly cooled, I cored the middle section of the cakes with a small knife, leaving a hollow centre. Do not discard the cored section, you need it to cover back the cakes after putting in the fillings.

2. Now fill the cakes with approximately 1 teaspoon of the filling, more if the hole you made is bug and lesser if it is small.

3. Cover it back with the cored section. You will need to cut off the lower part of the cored section so you are left with just the top part of the section.

4. I tint the buttercream light brown and some 2 tablespoons of the same buttercream in leaf green. I also made some apple blossoms from yellow fondants to be used in garnishing.

5. Using a spatula, spread the icing smoothly on top of the cupcakes. I centred the apple blossoms on each cake, piped 2 buttercream leaves for each blossom and voila! My cupcake is done!

I am very happy with the taste of the cake and the peanut butter filling, but I am still not satisfied with the buttercream. It didn't taste bad, but I'm still looking for a way to improve it.