Chocolate and Peanut Butter Brownies and Amaretto Cupcakes

As I said in my last blog I have recently been seeing lots of fantastic recipes on every one's blog recently and this next recipe is no exception. I saw this recipe on one of my favorite blogs Chocolate Teapot. So many great recipes on this blog definitely check it out.

This recipe for Chocolate Peanut butter Brownies is such a simple one so easy to make and it was a perfect treat to cook for the boyfriend (who loves peanut butter)after work on a Friday night. And he must have liked them as the whole tray didn't last more than 24 hours (Ok I did sneak a few myself). I will definitely be making these again and again, any way here are mine:

They were so moist and the perfect mix of Peanut Butter. I had a little problem with my peanut butter as it was a brand I had never used before and it really didn't want to melt but I managed to get round that little problem.

Any way here's how they're made:

225g Crunchy Peanut Butter
200g Plain Chocolate broken into pieces
280g Soft light brown sugar
3 Medium eggs
100g Self raising flour

Set aside 50g of both the peanut butter and the chocolate. Heat the oven to 180 degC and grease and line a brownie tin. I didn't have any lining left so just greased the tin and dusted with flour and that worked fine.

Gently melt the remaining peanut butter, chocolate and all the sugar in a pan, stirring until the sugar has just about melted.  This is where I encountered my first problem with the whole lot just clumping, I don't know why it happened but adding a splash of milk and stirring, fixed the problem and loosened up the mix.

Turn off the heat and use a wooden spoon to beat in the eggs one by one. Stir in the flour and scrape into the tin.

Melt the reserved peanut butter in a microwave for 45 seconds or in a pan, until runny then drizzle over the Brownie (I don't have a microwave and again my peanut butter wouldn't melt in the pan so i simply spread / dolloped mine over which still worked perfectly)

Bake until the brownie has a crust but the middle still seems slightly uncooked, Chele recommended 30-35 minutes but I had a shallower wider brownie pan so I went for around 25 Mins. And they were the perfect mix of crust and gooeyness. 

Melt the reserved chocolate and drizzle over the brownie then chill before cutting into squares. I on the other hand couldn't wait, they smelled so good so i cut one out before the chocolate had even hardened.

And that was the brownies, such a quick treat to make but they also disappear just as quickly.

Also recently I have revisited one of my past recipes but this time I feel they worked a lot better, these were Amaretto cupcakes for a friends mums birthday and this time I topped them with an amaretti  biscuit. She also ordered 6 chocolate orange as these are her favourites. any way here they are:

Any way the recipe was tweaked slightly and I felt it wasn't as dry as last time

Chocolate Amaretto Cupcakes
Makes 12.
100g Plain flour
20g Cocoa Powder
140g Caster Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
40g Unsalted Butter
1Egg
20 ml Milk
approx 100ml Amaretto  -Until you have a nice consistency and strong but not to overpowering taste.
Few drops of Vanilla extract
Few drops of Almond extract


Preheat the oven to 170 deg . Mix all the dry ingredients together and rub in the butter until you have a sandy consistency.
Whisk the Eggs, Vanilla and almond together in a jug and pour about into the dry mix and beat to combine.Then add the milk and Amaretto gradually until the mixture is smooth, free of lumps and off a good consistency.
Spoon the mixture into paper cases two thirds full and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the cake springs back when lightly pressed.

For the Amaretto butter cream.
250g Icing Sugar
80g Unsalted Butter
2-3 Tbs Milk
3-4 Tbs Amaretto

Blitz all ingredients together until you get the right consistency  - add more Icing sugar, and Amaretto as needed.

They definitely looked a lot better than last time as I didn't mess the icing up.

Before I go for today I just want to show you one last thing. A birthday present I got a little late but was hand made by my sister so made up for it here it is:

It's all cross stitched and she even painted the frame herself! how cute huh!

Any way that's all for today, no baking this weekend as I'm off to finish packing as I'm off to Spain on Saturday morning with the boyfriend and some of my lovely friends to try all the cocktails and food they have to offer.

so bye for now and keep baking xxx