Mouthgasm (Devil's Food Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes)

I made those.

Not the prettiest cupcakes ever, but I am pretty sure I had a

mouthgasm. 

No really. Not like a metaphorical one, like how I used to reference the Ultimate Burger from Dairy Queen as an "orgasm in a box." I actually had the neurological response of an orgasm in response to these cupcakes. They were that good.

I got inspired by Bake it in a Cake to create cupcakes with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures in the center. Megan put them in banana cupcakes, but I think there is an obvious argument for devil's food here. That's what I went with along with the peanut butter buttercream frosting she put on a brownie with a Take 5 bar inside.

This was a somewhat massive undertaking relative to the total lack of baking I've been doing lately so I actually got everything ready before I started. I'm sure my dad would be proud if he actually read blogs and knew that. I only have one cupcake/muffin pan so I busted out the mini-bundt pan we got as a present (Thanks Jamie!). I even opened all those little Reese's Peanut Butter Cups Miniatures in advance.

I did not however finish cleaning up dinner before I started hence the Crock Pot on the counter.

I mixed up devil's food cake batter from a box and followed the general Bake it in a Cake process (a heaping tablespoon of batter, whatever is going in the center, and another heaping tablespoon of batter on top. The whole process took maybe ten minutes.

Did you notice anything wrong with those miniatures I opened?

There were 25.

and there are only 24 cupcakes in two pans. This little guy got left behind. I felt bad for him, all alone on the plate after everyone else landed a spot inside a cupcake. He's still there. It's almost tragic.

I figured I must have used a bit more batter than I should have because I used just about every last smear of batter and ran out with three mini-bundts left half done.

Baking confirmed my suspicions. They were a tad overfull. Result: cupcakes with muffin tops. Not so bad really.

I debated between using the Bake it in a Cake peanut butter buttercream recipe and the one from my Betty Crocker cookbook.

The proportions were totally different, but I decided to give Megan's a try and I could not be happier. I usually think buttercream tastes a little too much like powdered sugar. This doesn't. It's perfect. It's basically one part butter, one part peanut butter and two parts powdered sugar with a teaspoon of vanilla.

Conclusion:

The perfect peanut butter buttercream frosting recipe for 24 cupcakes is

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar. 

I cut one open. It's almost required when something awesome is in the center of a cupcake and you can't see it any other way. The peanut butter cup was a little low in that one (it was dead center in the one I ate), but I wasn't willing to cut another just to get a better picture.

Best. Cupcakes. Ever.

Gooseberries!

You might not be familiar with this amazing gift of nature.  You should be.  They are small and pale green and delicious and my husband claims they look like eye balls.  Fun fact, apparently British people wait until they ripen to pinkish purple to pick and eat them.  It sounds crazy, but after eating my first ripe gooseberry this summer I can say they are amazing, just slightly more sweet than the green form, and with a hint of mint. 

My devotion to gooseberries borders on obsession.  I’ve already warned my husband that gooseberries will be among the first plantings in any backyard garden I am a party to.  I have exactly 11 cups of them in my freezer which will be rationed until next June.  In case we aren’t clear yet, let me explain.

My grandparents have had a bush or two in the backyard for as long as I can remember.  When I was little, my grandmother would bake gooseberry meringue pie.  I even invented gooseberry parfaits as a child to avoid what I considered at the time to be the unnecessary and difficult task of making pie crust. 

A friend who really should leave academia to produce pies full time made me one in honor of my oral qualifying exam in graduate school.  She’s brilliant, but the world would be a much better place with more of her pie in it.  I had barely gotten two bites of that glorious pie into my mouth when my committee interrupted to announce I had passed my exam and had a masters degree.  I was slightly perturbed by the interruption.

I considered serving gooseberry tarts at our wedding since my husband and I had concluded that choosing only one wedding dessert was just not our style.  Instead we each picked two.  When I stopped and thought about it I realized the majority would go to waste on people who really didn’t know what they were getting into and the reception would end with half eaten gooseberry tarts strewn about the venue or tossed in the trash.  No gooseberry should suffer such a fate.  Instead, my aunt produced not one, but two (one sour cream and one regular) gooseberry pies for the rehearsal dinner which were relished by those in the know. 

Get it?  Good.

That said, gooseberry bushes are spikey.  Really spikey.  Huge scary thorn spikey.  So spikey my grandfather, who hates waste, decided to let them ripen and fall to the ground this summer to avoid the torn skin he would endure as a result of any attempt to get at the little orbs.  Hence, my first taste of ripe gooseberries.  You Grow Girl has a great image of them. 

I could not allow this to happen. 

So, last month, I picked gooseberries in my grandpa’s backyard while he hacked away at the last of the rhubarb.

One of his neighbors joined us and told me she used to make gooseberries into a half gooseberry, half blueberry pastry she referred to as bluegoose pie.  I’ll try anything once.

I started with an EatingWell recipe for pie crust.  I use it all the time despite knowing that one used by the previously mentioned pie queen is superior in taste because I’m a sucker for healthier versions of food.  It’s great, but really nothing compares to large portions of butter and shortening.  I do use her replacement of half the water with vodka.  It makes the crust more tender and flaky.

For the filling I mashed together the recipe my aunt provided for gooseberry pie with EatingWell’s suggestion of how little sugar I could feasibly use from their Blueberry Streusel Pie.  I combined a bag of frozen blueberries (about 3 cups),  2 cups gooseberries I’d collected at my grandfather’s, cleaned, and frozen, ½ cup of sugar, and a tablespoon of cornstarch in a saucepan.  I heated them on the stove until the gooseberries started to pop and the juice thickened a bit, poured it into the crust, topped it with a little lattice action and baked it.

I think the blueberries tone the gooseberries down a little too much, but overall pretty scrumptious.  I heart pie.