I have ended up doing way more cupcake and baking posts than I ever thought that I would. I blame my new red hand mixer and cute cupcake papers, but who knows. Maybe I just like having baked goods with my coffee for breakfast. I'm not sure where the idea came from but I urgently needed to make peanut butter cupcakes. Like, I had to make them. Had to. I am so glad I did. I searched around the innernet but only found some generic recipes that used oil or shortening which I don't like to use. That is when I concocted this masterpiece:

To die for!

Peanut Butter & Nutella Cupcakes:

6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup peanut butter 
1/4 cup Nutella
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup "super skim" milk 

I mixed up the flour, baking powder, and salt in my cute green bowl (you must use a cute bowl or it will ruin everything) and set that aside. Then I mixed up the butter, brown sugar, and Nutella with my beloved lil red hand mixer. After that was all nice and smooth (and smelling wonderful already) I added the egg and the vanilla. Then accidentally spilled in a few extra drips of vanilla. I then added about a third of the dry mix and kept mixing. Then half the milk. Then another third of the dry mix. Then the other half of the milk. Then the rest of the dry mix. Kept on mixing. 
At this point my brown sugar turned into little clumps so I smooshed them out with a spatula. Finally I took my cookie scoop and put two balls of batter into the 12 purple houndstooth cupcake liners (again, your cupcake liners must be cute or else you're going to botch this whole recipe). Baked 'em at 350 for about 25 minutes and kept sneaking big whiffs of the delightful peanut butter scent that was filling the kitchen.
I let them cool for about 20 minutes on a wire rack before I topped them with a dainty amount of Nutella as frosting. 

Cooling!

I had thought about making these a PB&J kinda cupcake with some blackberry buttercream (like I did here) but I think I will save that for next time. Nutella was easier.. and obviously delish. At this point I could no longer stand just looking at them and I promptly enjoyed one. These guys are amazing. If you have milk to drink when you are eating them, do it. Especially if they are the teensiest bit still warm inside. They are so soft and moist and peanut buttery and the Nutella adds just enough pizazz to make you one happy person. It felt like an illegal treat and I might have gotten in trouble at any second. Let me know if you try these out!

:)

p.s. The Beard just got home from his hockey game and plopped a box of Dunkin' Donuts K-cups on my lap. eeeeee!