Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes!

I confess.  I absolutely LOVE peanut butter.  Sandwiches.  Reese's cups.  Ice cream.  Right out of the jar.  Love it.  I don't eat it very often, but when I do, it is heaven.  So, when I happened across this recipe for peanut butter and jelly cupcakes, well...I had no choice.  Had to make them. 

I found them on this great blog...We Are Not Martha, but I have to admit that I did not love the actual cake itself.  Kinda dry and heavy.  Maybe something I did wrong (imagine that lol).  The frosting, however, was peanut butter perfection.  The second time around, I used my favorite peanut butter cupcake recipe and they turned out super.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes
{makes about 12 cupcakes}
Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:
1/4 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup milk, room temperature
Your favorite jelly, jam, or preserves

For the frosting:
6 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Directions:
For the cakes:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line muffin tin with paper liners.  Cream butter and peanut butter together in bowl of stand mixer until smooth and creamy.  Add sugar and eggs and beat together until fluffy.  Add vanilla and mix for another minute or two.

Whisk together dry ingredients in a bowl.  Add half of the dry ingredients to mixer bowl, mixing until just combined.  Add milk.  Once combined, add remaining dry ingredients. 

Fill liners about 2/3 full.  Bake for 15-18 minutes (See note).  Cool completely.

For frosting:
Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar with electric mixer on low speed until light and fluffy.  Add salt and peanut butter.  Beat to combine.  Beat in vanilla.

Whisk cream in a separate bowl with an electric mixer until medium-stiff peaks form.  Fold whipped cream into pb mixture.

Assemble:
Using the large end of a piping tip, cut out a hole in the cupcakes.  Fill with about a tsp of jelly.  Fill a pastry bag, fitted with your favorite tip, with the frosting and pipe onto the cakes.  Add a little dollop of jelly to the top of the cupcake.

*Note:  These peanut butter cupcakes are very touchy when baking.  There is a very fine line between perfect and over done.  I start checking mine around 15 minutes, and have found my "perfect" time to be somewhere between 16 and 17 minutes.

Also, you can add 3/4 cup peanut butter chips to the batter if you want.  That is yummy, too!