Honeyed Fluffer Nutter Cupcakes

If I have ever met a cupcake that defined "finger-licking good," then this is surely it.  Sticky, gooey, moist, fluffy, completely drenched in marshmallow, laced with honey... yeah... holy taters.

When I saw that the theme for Quirky Cupcake's March Cupcake Hero Challenge was Marshmallow, the first thought that came to my mind was, "aaahh fluffer nuttersss."  Though I knew that many people would probably take the same path (since come on, it's a classic!), I really just had to do it.  And I am so glad I did, because seriously these cupcakes were amazing!

And as I was planning out my recipe, I kept on fantasizing about having the peanut butter and marshmallow cupcakes, and then drizzling honey all over them!  Oh, the scandalous fantasies I have sometimes...  What can I say, I am as big a fan of peanut butter and honey as I am of peanut butter and marshmallow!  So, why not combine them?  Instead of drizzling the finished cupcakes with honey (I thought this would be too messy and the sweetness would be unbalanced), I decided to add honey to both the cake and the marshmallow.  This proved to be a fabulous idea - the honey gave the cake extra moistness and deepened the flavor, and it just made the marshmallow about 10 times more decadent than it would have been otherwise.  I mean, just the thought of honey marshmallow almost puts me in a sugar-induced coma.  

So the cupcakes ended up being peanut butter honey cake, filled and smothered in honey marshmallow fluff.  As you can see above, I played around with different ways of topping these.  First I tried a peanut butter/marshmallow swirly piping, which looked nice, but in the end, the cupcakes tasted way better with just the marshmallow on top.  As you can see below, they weren't as pretty this way... but oh it really didn't matter.  The next day, most of the marshmallow topping had melted into the cupcakes (omg YES!).  Sooo I just spooned some more over right before eating them, and enjoyed the marshmallow soakage heaven.  

There's really not much more I can say about these cupcakes besides that I urge you to try them if you like peanut butter and marshmallow.  Every bite is packed with flavor.  I've described them as well as I can, but really you just have to taste them to get the full effect!  So on with the recipe!

Honeyed Fluffer Nutter Cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

2 cups cake flour

1 cup boiling water

1 cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup honey

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 F.  

Whisk together the eggs with the sugar.  Then add the honey and peanut butter and whisk to combine.  Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and then add them gradually to the wet mixture.  Once everything is incorporated, slowly pour the boiling water into the batter while whisking.  When incorporated, the batter will be very liquidy.  

Pour into lined cupcake tins and put in the oven.  Bake for 5 minutes at 375.  Turn the oven down to 350 and bake for 3 more minutes.  Turn the oven down to 325 and bake for 3 more minutes or until the tops are golden and an inserted knife comes out clean.  Let cool.

For the marshmallow filling/topping:

(adapted from this recipe)

2 egg whites

1 cup light corn syrup

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/2 cup honey

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

Beat the egg whites with the corn syrup and salt until soft peaks form.  

Gradually add the powdered sugar, beating until combined.  

Beat in the honey and vanilla extract.

This makes way more fluff than you'll need for the cupcakes, so you might want to halve the recipe.  I like having the extra so I can add more to the cupcakes right before eating them.  Also, I used the rest of my extra fluff in another delicious creation that is in my oven as I write this!