So Sweet and Simple

Recently one of Timmy's coworkers and his lady friend made peanut butter cups and were kind enough to share a few with us. Now if you have ever had peanut butter cups, you very well know that only one or two is not nearly enough. Timmy and I got hit hard with the peanut butter chocolate craving and since I am a chocolate addict it wasn't long until I was popping peanut butter cups like a fiend.

The peanut butter cups I made had a slight twist to them as I made mine not only with peanut butter and chocolate but also with caramel and pretzel pieces...yum!

First I melted down 1 and 1/2 cups of bittersweet chocolate and lined mini muffin lines with the melted chocolate and tucked away into the freezer for an hour. While those were chilling I used all natural peanut butter (1/2 cup) and mixed in 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup then I tossed in a handful of pretzel sticks and with a spoon mashed the pretzel into the peanut butter mixture.

On the stove top I boiled 1/2 cup soymilk, added 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown rice syrup, mixing until golden brown. One mixed, I removed the pot from the stove top and added 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 tsp of baking soda, mixing well. I let it cool on the counter top then transferred to the fridge to thicken.

When the caramel sauce was cool I dropped a teaspoon of the peanut butter mix into my chilled chocolate cups, drizzled in the caramel and put back in the freezer for about 15 minutes, then melted down more chocolate and covered the tops, chilled and ate the heck out of them! They were very tasty and similar to take five bars.

Gooey Caramel Pecan Cupcakes

It never rains in Arizona, ever. Those of us living in the desert pray for rain. We practically shout at the top of our lungs and perform intricate dances to bring forth tiny droplets of heaven to quench our parched landscape. The land dwellers of the southwest must have been extra good this year because it has been raining consistently for the last 4 days in our arid state. What is a bike riding girl to do? I could go outside and get soaked to the bone or stay inside bake up some delicious cupcakes and curl up to a great book. Since I finished all 1000 plus pages of "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace I really only had one thing I could do, bake more cupcakes! I used the Basic Chocolate Cupcake recipe from VCTOTW with the exception of adding an avocado and omitting the canola oil and I also cut the sugar by 1/4 a cup and ended with a rich chocolaty but not overly sweet cake. It was delicious! I used a chocolate butter cream frosting and drizzled caramel sauce on top. The caramel sauce recipe I got from veganicecream.blogspot. It is quite tasty but a bit too sweet for my tastes; I think next time I will make the caramel sauce with agave nectar. Also I used a coconut milk from So Delicious in both the cake recipe and the caramel sauce and the flavors were complex and rich. All and all I ended up with a fluffy, moist and sinful cake. I am definitely going to bake these again, and I will not be waiting for another rainy day to do so.