*Dandy Cakes

Being September it is officially birthday season in my home. Our families birthdays are cram packed into a delightfully busy few weeks Connors birthday starts the festivities towards the end of September, Riley's picks up the swing towards the end of October and the grand finale(s) my birthday on Halloween and Stephen's the day after. So to celebrate the greatness that is our Autumn loving family every year I tend to have a cup cake fest. Typically my family is not a cup cake loving household, Stephen pretty much hates them and although every kid loves a cup cake I believe that over the years Riley has even had enough. This cup cake was a sure win though, its a total nod to the Tastykake Kandy Kakes I loved and adored as a kid. Even after all of the years we lived in Maine we still always had a tastykake ration. 

However many boxes of tastykakes we had stored the ration did eventually run out and I remember my step mom would make a sheet cake that tasted just like it. So I phoned in the tastykake expert and low and behold her recipe is just a yellow cake with peanut butter and chocolate! I was surprised but thrilled no less. So the key was to transition that recipe into a cup cake. I just used my basic yellow cake recipe and dolloped crunchy peanut butter into the batter, smoothed the top over a bit and baked as usual. I over baked my cakes a bit this time but they were so incredible anyway, once cooled I added a smear of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and alas the deliciousness has arrived. Peanut butter, chocolate and  a side of holy yum! 

1/4 cup butter or vegetable shortening softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons sugar

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose unbleached flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup whole milk

-crunchy peanut butter for filling (approximately 2 teaspoons per cup cake)

*1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (melted with 1-2 teaspoons corn syrup)

Jimmy's for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Line 1 muffin tin with cup cake liners. Spray lightly if desired.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of your stand mixer beat to combine butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Combine until smooth and creamy, add egg, salt and vanilla. In a separate bowl combine baking powder and flour. Alternately incorporate the milk and dry mixture into the batter. Dollop batter into each cup cake liner, fill each cup no more than 2/3 full. Dollop about 2 teaspoons of peanut butter into each cup, I used a cookie scoop and only filled it about half way. It was easiest just dropping even little portions that way. Using a knife or fork gently stir the batter up and over the peanut butter ball. It doesn't have to be perfect, what you want to do is make sure the peanut butter is mostly covered by the batter. 

Bake 15-18 minutes. Remove cups from the tin within 5 minutes so you don't get a soggy cup cake. Once the cakes are cooled mostly you can dip them into melted chocolate or spoon chocolate over them. 

This is my basic yellow cake recipe halved so it should result in 10-12 cup cakes.

For the original dandy sheet cake: prepare the above recipe for yellow cake and place into a 9 to 11 inch square pan or prepare a full recipe of yellow cake and bake according to directions in a 9x13 pan. Once out of the oven smear with smooth peanut butter. Pour melted semisweet chocolate chips over top, cool and slice once the chocolate has hardened.