Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Cream Frosting: One of my top three

In my quest to out-do myself and impress Nate, I made these chocolate peanut butter cupcakes.  I am trying to make a cupcake that Nate likes even more than the cookies and cream cupcakes, but I am still unsuccessful.  This is one of my top three favorites, though.  My top three, in no particular order, are Chai Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream (my best buttercream to date), these chocolate brownie cupcakes with peanut butter cream frosting, and my canoli cupcakes.  So, how did these cupcakes earn a spot in the top three.  Well. each part of the cupcake is delicious on it's own.  Especially that peanut butter cream frosting.  The frosting recipe I have always makes extra frosting, so I keep a jar of it in my refridgerator and snack on it all by itself!  I also use Ghirardelli chocolate chips in this recipe, Ghirardelli is my favorite chocolate.  And, lastly, chocolate and peanut butter is just always a delicious combination.

 

Decorated with a cupcake topping a cupcake - an idea from "Confessions of a Cookbook Queen"

Lemon Cupcakes with Whipped Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting: An early anniversary cupcake

Nate and I were married in May of 2011.  Our wedding color was yellow and, therefore, our had a little bit of a lemon theme going.  For our favors we gave out Trader Joes lemon curd.  Generally, no one had any idea what that was, but when our guests tried it on toast, yogurt, ice-cream, and cheesecakes, they fell in love!  We had some extra lemon curd and one day I looked at the label and realized it was about the expire!  So, I had to make our anniversary cupcakes a little early.