You all probably thought I fell off the face of Earth didn't ya! I apologize for taking such a hiatus from my blog. I have still been taking lots of pictures of food I've been making, so I have no excuse to not blog about them!

My middle little, Ellie, turned 9 this month. Between family parties and a friend party I made lots of cupcakes and a cake. My favorite has to be the cupcakes I made for her friend party! I have found a lady who does ceramics. She teaches everyone from 2 to 90... although I am sure if you are 92 and still have a desire to paint ceramics, she isn't going to turn you away ;-) I was VERY pleased with her party and her prices. If anyone wants to plan a party I can give you her contact information in a private e-mail.

Ellie decided she wanted her friends to paint fish... so we went with the whole fish theme for the invitations and party. I found some dimensional fish in a scrapbooking section at our local megamart and decided to use glue dots to affix toothpicks to them to stick in the cupcakes.

The frosting was to DIE FOR!!! I guess that depends on your fondness of peanut butter... one of my favorite candy bars is Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.... so this was right up my alley! I doubled the frosting recipe to pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes the way I did. If you were just going to spread the frosting on the cupcakes, a single recipe should be adequate... but why would you just want a thin layer!?! =-)

Chocolate Cupcakes

6 T cocoa

1 1/2 C sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 C flour

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 C vegetable oil

1 C water

Sift together cocoa, sugar, salt, baking soda and flour. Using a mixer, mix together the eggs, vanilla, oil and water until well combined. Slowly add in the dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Scrape down side of mixer as needed. Divide evenly into 24 lined muffin cups and bake at 375* for about 18-20 minutes.

Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting

6 T unsalted butter, softened

3/4 C powdered sugar

3/4 C creamy peanut butter

1/4 C heavy cream

Using a mixer, beat all ingredients together until smooth and combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed while mixing. Use a pastry bag with a large tip to pipe frosting on cupcakes, or spread with a knife.