Peanut Butter Cream-Filled
Devil's Food Cupcakes
with Chocolate-Butterfinger Icing

COMFORT FOOD ALERT:  For a bad day when you want indulgent food (and when I don't want to tweak too much and just want to cheat the shit out of a recipe).
I assumed I'd be down with this recipe I found for Peanut Butter Cream-filled Devil's-Food Cupcakes from Bobby Flay, but I felt it could leave the slightest Mark on it (see what I did there again?)

Ingredients:

Cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups cake flour flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk *see buttermilk cheat at bottom
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup strong coffee
3 2 large eggs (+ egg white)
+ cup whole milk
+ 1 teaspoon lemon juice
Boxed Devil's Food Cake Mix (sugar-free)
+ 2 pinches of nutmeg
+ 1/2 cup canola oil

PASTRY BAG w Medium Tip (just the tip isn't enough for me to get the job done here)

Filling:
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup creamy peanut butter low-fat creamy peanut butter
1 1/4 cups sifted confectioner's sugar    (like I own a sifter-I can barely open my utensil drawer)

Ganache  What the hell is ganache?  Icing/Topping:
1/2 cup heavy cream
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate roughly chopped (I used Ghirardelli)
1 cup roasted peanuts, chopped 2 Butterfinger candy bars crushed

Preheat oven to 325°

Line a muffin pan with foil cupcake lines (or lay our on a cookie sheet).

Follow directions on your cake mix box and make the batter.  Add the coffee.  Fill the cups half way and bake for 25 minutes.  Set on your cooling rack.

With a hand mixer, beat the butter and peanut butter until blended.  On a slow speed, slowly add the confectioner's sugar.  Crank up the speed some and beat until it's fluffy.  Spoon this mixture into a pastry bag with a medium tip and insert some of that cream in there--DON'T overdo it or it'll just break up.

Crush your Butterfingers in a Ziploc bag or in their wrappers (make it dusty but with some chunks).

Place the chocolate in a medium bowl.  Heat the cream in a small sauce pan until scalding.  Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let sit for a minute.  Wisk it till it becomes smooth.  Let it chill out and thicken for like 10.  Dip the tops of the cupcakes in the goo and place on your rack individually. Top the soft icing with the crushed candy and allow to set (or don't I don't care, they could be good all hot an gooey).

Notes:

I made this for me not others.  I use nuts sometimes when it's for others but not tonight**.

Tweaks:
I used a sugar-free mix (no healthy tweak as it is negated by everything else here).
I added some nutmeg to sweeten this sugarless mix.

**Nuts and raisins don't belong in food--they belong in a bowl (or occasionally in a crunchy peanut butter) or in a box respectively. I opted for crushed candy for the topping.
I used low-fat peanut butter.  I understand that with this truly fattening dessert that this does not really count as a healthy tweak cut corners when you can. Plus it tastes the same and I had it already.
I cut out one egg and used one egg yolk
I cut out 2 tablespoons of butter out of the recipe for the cupcake.  Isn't 1/2 a cup enough??

Cheats:
*Buttermilk is a waste of money when it's not something already in house and you need so little of it.  One cup whole milk + 1 tablespoons allowed to curdle (15 minutes) is a great quickie homemade ingredient.
I used a box instead of doing cupcakes from scratch this time.

Verdict: Success

Neighbor-worthy.  I gave these to my buddies down at our local (and favorite) place, the Half King.  They have been so great to us over the years and I wanted to share my thanks with a few extra lbs.

Do you want to be on the mailing list or have recipes you want to share with me?  Contact me at themaniccheater@gmail.com.