My little brother is currently going through a phase where he's eating a LOT of peanut butter. I wanted an excuse to use my blowtorch so decided to make these cupcakes as something a bit different.
I started off with a chocolate cake, dolloped crunchy peanut butter into the batter before baking and topped it with some homemade marshmallow fluff.
For the chocolate batter, I used the vanilla recipe but substituted 20g of the flour for cocoa powder. It's really simple to do and gives a good result.
In a bowl I mixed 40g margarine, 140g caster sugar, 100g self-raising flour, 20g cocoa powder and mixed until it resembled fine breadcrumbs.
I then mixed an egg with 120ml of milk in a bowl and added half of the mixture to the 'breadcrumb' mixture.
Once combined, add the rest of the eggs and milk and mix until smooth.
Spoon the mixture into 12 cupcake cases and add a teaspoon of peanut butter to each cake case.
Bake for about 16-18 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius.
Allow to cool completely.
To make the marshmallow creme you need:
2/3rds cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar (plus 2tbsp caster sugar)
3 egg whites
Pinch salt
Method:
1. Put the water and the 1 1/2 cups sugar in a heavy based saucepan. Bring to the boil and boil to 240 degrees Farenheit while you get on with the egg whites.
2. Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form soft peaks then add in the 2 tbsp of caster sugar.
3. When the sugar reaches 240 degrees, slowly add the sugar to the egg whites in a continuous stream while the mixer is still running. This is easiest in a freestanding mixer like a KitchenAid but works fine with a handheld one.
4. Continue to whisk the mixture on high speed for about 6-8 minutes until really thick and glossy and it resembles marshmallow fluff. It'll go really thick and 'gloopy'.
To put the cupcakes together, fill up a piping back with the marshmallow creme (or if you don't have one use a sandwich bag as I did as I don't have a piping bag at my parents' house) and pipe onto the cakes in a swirl.
Next, toast your marshmallow lightly with a blowtorch. It's not imperative and it's perfectly fine un-toasted but I love the finish it gives and using the blowtorch.
I topped my cakes with half of a Reese's peanut butter cup and a chocolate covered peanut but you really could use whatever you wanted.
It's a simple recipe and a messy cake to eat. Prepare for a white face as the marshmallow goes everywhere!
This marshmallow creme is also good on top of s'mores cupcakes (or basically anything). I love it!!
