Heat Sinks

Ok...this weekend, I had my most embarrassing/disastrous baking incident of my entire life. This even tops a few episode from my unruly adolescent years...

On Saturday evening, we attended a BBQ at a friend's home for our church 20's and 30's group. As an accomplished cook and baker (ha!), I decided that I should RSVP for both macaroni and cheese and cupcakes...since both my husband and I would be attending. But in typical Big R fashion, I was running late--I had to dash to the lab, then to Target for groceries, and then home to do all of this cooking. I get through the front door at 4:15 and the party starts at 5, and I still decide to attempt mac and cheese and cupcakes....mistake...

I manage to get the cupcake batter made while the pasta is boiling for the mac and cheese. The cupcake recipe is One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. I've made them in the past and they are really yummy and easy. The cupcakes go in the oven, and then I move on to assembling my mac and cheese, and put it in the oven. I start to wonder why nearly 40 minutes later, the cupcakes still don't look done. I pull them out and they are still just goo. After sitting out of the oven for a few minutes, they all collapsed in the middle. I didn't even think at the time to take a picture for the blog, but it would have been really comical. So word to the wise--allow enough time to put your cakes in the oven separately from a full 9x13 Corningware of macaroni and cheese. Apparently, that takes up A LOT of the oven heat!

While I was waiting for those suckers to do something in the oven, I did manage to whip up some awesome Peanut Butter Buttercream Icing to put on the cupcakes. I brought that along to the party, and that was so good, people went ahead and slathered on chocolate cake that another guest had brought. The rest is in the fridge right now, and it is so cold that I was thinking I would mold it into balls and dip it in chocolate to make some candies....yum.

Here's the recipe I made up:
Peanut Butter Buttercream Icing
Ingredients
1/2 c. butter, room temp.
1/2 c. peanut butter
4 c. confectioner's sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2-4 Tbsp. milk

Cream butter and peanut butter in an electric mixture until smooth and creamy. Gradually add confectioner's sugar ~1 cup at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Mixture will be very dry at this point. Add vanilla, and then milk 1 Tbsp. at a time until frosting is desired consistency.