Yu-um!

As mentioned in a previous post, I am really digging peanut butter this pregnancy. Maybe I need the extra fat -- I dunno -- but I love the stuff. (For the sake of my now-rounded hips, I am hoping this penchant subsides once the baby arrives.) On a whim, I recently bought Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter from Target; partly for my culinary enjoyment and partly for my husband's. Jason and I agreed: It's not fantastic by itself or on plain bread (it lacks the sweetness we were expecting) but it's divine over vanilla ice cream.

Today, I pulled out of the freezer* some lower fat Dark Chocolate Cupakes from Brogan's birthday party. Being a fan of the salty-sweet flavor profile, I thought I'd give the chocolate peanut butter a whirl as icing. It's not nearly as thick as traditional peanut butter so it spreads, or rather drizzles, really easily. What a happy accident! I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it as an easy alternative to icing. If you're anything like me, you'd only use half of a container of icing anyway and the rest would sit in the door of your fridge for ages only to be remembered once it's hard and beyond the point of no return. I have to caution you, though: I iced the cupcake and ate it right away. I don't know how well this "icing" will set up if you do an entire batch and let them sit. Just a word of warning.

*For those of you who are wondering, the cupcakes were really good even after being frozen for nearly three months. It's a great alternative to having two dozen cupcakes staring you in the face for a week and a half. We ate half the batch then and have the other half to look forward to now.