Page 56 Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

"Inspiration for new cupcakes can come from anywhere, even a popular childhood sandwich. The creamy peanut butter frosting may be crowned with any jelly or jam flavor, strawberry, grape or raspberry wouldbe delicious. For the best flavor, use natural-style peanut butter in the cupcake batter." - Martha

If you love peanut butter cookies, you will treasure these cupcakes. They not only awaken all of your senses: they look so precious, the texture is just the right amount of fluffiness, the scent is so tantalizing it brings wonderful childhood memories to the forefront of your mind and these cupcakes taste like the real thing too; but they are so easy to make!

If you are not a baker on a regular basis and think that baking anything from scratch is hard, you will be pleasantly surprised to find that this recipe is easy as, well, making a PB&J! The ingredients are probably already in your pantry and frig. What a great treat for your kiddos when they come home from school.

I know that when I read this recipe, I really thought it sounded good; I figured my kiddos would too since they grew up on the sandwich. Alas, only one child remarked good things about them, but that's all it took in my mind to get the job done! This recipe by direction makes 22 cupcakes, but I halved the totals and made 12 full-sized cupcakes. So, I'm thinking that a full recipe would have made 24. I made the creamy peanut butter frosting Martha recommends but I also adapted my own twist too. I know there are those who only like cake and those who die for frosting! These cupcakes taste so good that adding frosting to them could be considered too sweet! So in lieu of the icing, I simply added a dollup of jelly to the top of the cupcake before baking. Much like a thumbprint cookie with the jelly baked right on top, the jelly in the cake was perfect. So you can make these with or without the frosting and they still have the flavor and tradition of a PB&J.