A Pinch of Salt and Battering: Stacey's Birthday Cupcakes

I have a stupendous friend named Stacey. She's beautiful and selfless and gives birth to the cutest little people. And TODAY is her birthday!
Stacey and I are leaders over the 12 and 13 year old girls at church, and last night, at our activity with them, we decided to chow down on some cupcakes to celebrate the event.
This is a recipe that could potentially fall under the category of "baking my way through 'Our Best Bites' dessert section." I say potentially because I changed the recipe. A bit. You'll see. Just know that these (the way I did them) turned out rich and delicious and oh my gosh can you really go wrong with chocolate AND peanut butter? I will revisit it again sometime and make it the way they did. Or maybe not. I mean, these turned out really really good...

I'm going to post the original recipe, and then I'll leave my psychotic notes of things I changed. You know, like I always do :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

1 Duncan Hines yellow or white cake mix
1 cup sour cream (full-fat or light, but not fat-free)
3 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
24 unwrapped mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

Chocolate Frosting:

1/4 cup melted butter (real butter, not margarine)
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 pound powdered sugar
3 tablespoons evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Peanut Butter Frosting:

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup real butter, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 tablespoons (or more) of milk (you can use some of the leftover evaporated milk; it’s awesome in this frosting)

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine all the cupcake ingredients except for the peanut butter cups with an electric mixer on medium-low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the bowl frequently. Turn the speed to high and beat for another 3 minutes.

Fill each muffin cup about 1/2 full with batter. Top with an unwrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup , then fill the muffin cups with the remaining batter. Make sure the Peanut Butter Cups are covered and the cups are about 3/4 full. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until the tops are golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the frostings. For both frostings, just combine all the ingredients for each one and whip until light and fluffy, adding additional milk as needed. Frost the cupcakes with the swirled frosting.

If you decide to make these as they did, with both frostings swirled, then follow their tutorial found HERE. Pretty nifty way to use two frostings together :)

Okay.
So.
I used a chocolate cake mix, because I thought it sounded yummier (I didn't know that was a word until just now when I typed it and it didn't put a red squiggle beneath it) to bake a peanut butter cup in a chocolate cupcake. So I did. When I did that, I decided to just do the peanut butter frosting. So I did. And when I did that, I decided to use some of the left over peanut butter cups, and chop them up for the frosting.

It.
Was.
Bananas.

And since I changed mine enough that they don't really look the same as Our Best Bites, these are, officially, "Stacey's Birthday Cupcakes."
Ta da.

I had every intention of taking step by step pictures, filling the cups, placing the peanut butter cups, filling some more, blah blah blah. But, then I forgot.

Just FYI, I filled my 3/4 full and...

They went a little insane. The batter is so thick (SO thick! what with all of that sour cream and peanut butter added into it) though that they shouldn't spill out everywhere. If you don't want your cupcake tops this big, then fill the liners a little less than 3/4 full.