Some of you may have seen a prematurely-posted version of this post a couple months ago.  Sorry about that.  I blame Ellie.  Here’s the real thing!

Back in June, I had the fun opportunity to make cupcakes for a friend‘s baby shower.  The main course at the shower was chicken and waffles (recreating the mother-to-be’s favorite brunch meal) and so we thought we’d make some fun themed cupcakes too.  Steph made these bacon and maple cupcakes, which were delicious!!  If you like to dip your bacon in your maple syrup while eating waffles, then you’ll enjoy these cupcakes!  I made peanut butter and jelly cupcakes, which were also delicious!  Here’s the recipe in case you’d like to try them yourself.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes
Makes 24 cupcakes*
Adapted by Laura from this recipe

For the Cupcakes:
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 C sour cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Beat together and set aside.

18 T unsalted butter, at soft room temperature (that’s two sticks plus 2 T)
3/4 C sour cream
Beat in a stand mixer until well-combined.

2 1/2 C plus 2 T all-purpose flour
1 1/2 C sugar
3/4 tsp each of baking powder, baking soda, and salt
Add to the butter/sour cream mixture in the standing mixer.  Beat on medium/ high for two minutes until the mixture is very light, fluffy, and creamy.  You’ll definitely see a change in the mixture near the end of the two minutes.  Pour in half of the egg/sour cream mixture and beat on medium high for one minute.  Repeat with the second half of the eggs.   You should end up with an amazingly light, fluffy batter.

smooth natural peanut butter, warmed so that it moves easily
jam of your favorite flavor (I used my SIL’s wild Alaska raspberry jam!)
Put cupcake liners in your pans.  Fill each cupcake about 1/3 of the way full with batter.  The batter is very thick so you’ll need to spread out the batter so that it fills the bottom of each liner.  Drizzle a little bit of peanut butter and a little bit of jam into each cupcake liner.

Add the remaining batter evenly and use the back of a spoon to spread out the batter evenly on top of the PB&J.  Make sure to fill each cupcake liner no more full than 2/3 to 3/4 full (unless you don’t mind having overly large cupcakes that ooze out the top!).  You will have leftover batter (see note below).

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 15-20 minutes.  Cupcakes will be done when they bounce back when touched gently.  Let them cool completely before frosting.

For the Frosting**:
1/2 C smooth peanut butter, at room temperature
1/2 C cream cheese, at room temperature
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, at room temperature
2 tsp sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Beat together until smooth.

1/2 C plus 2 T powdered sugar
Add and beat until combined.  The frosting will be very easy to spread at room temperature.  If you need to refrigerate it, let it warm up before attempting to spread it.

jam (of same flavor as what you put inside)
After frosting the cupcakes, drizzle some jam on top to complete the PB&J theme!

Sorry I forgot to take a picture of the final project.  These were really delicious!

*The original recipe made 16 cupcakes (weird) so I increased the ingredients to make 24 cupcakes.  However, using that much batter overfilled the cupcakes.  So you’ll get 24 nice sized cupcakes and still have some batter left over.

**These are the original frosting measurements.  This was plenty of frosting for all 24 cupcakes but I only spread a relatively thin layer with a knife.  If you plan to pipe on the frosting more thickly, you’ll want to make more frosting.