Peanut Butter Chocloate Coffee Cupcakes (PB triple C's)

This is so me. Instead of finally getting my mail things done...or my schedule organised for the coming month, I'll sit back and write a post about my last Friday. Yeah.
Anyways. But a last Friday post might actually be more interesting than all the mail things because, last Friday, we decided to bake. (Ok. We planned to bake before. Because, seriously? We are just way to organised around here to just do something ;P).
Anyway. It was my turn to pick the recipe so, naturally, we ended up with something with peanut butter in it ;)

Ok. This picture might be confusing. But trust me...I can explain it!

The original recipe is from AbeautifulMess (Emma and Treys wedding shower party cupcakes) and except for a few little tweaks we mainly followed the recipe).

For 20 Peanut Butter Coffee Chocolate Cupcakes (PB triple C's that's what I just came up with anyway), You'll need:

• 3/4 cup softened butter (we had margarine)
• 1 1/3 cup sugar (And I might just use 1cup next time. The recipe made some really sweet cupcakes)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 3/4 cup flour (I could imagine that wholemeal flour (1 1/2 cups) also would be great. And more healthy!)
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup creamy peanut butter (we used "healthy" pb so that one was also less sweat!)
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt

Our main changes happened in the frosting. It called for 1/2 cup black coffee, but we both had a lot of bad experiences of putting water into melted chocolate. So instead, I made a super concentrated coffee paste (it was still difficult to incorporate, so next time I would make my coffee paste with milk!) and we sued way more icing sugar. So this lists the ingredients and amounts we did:

• 9 ounces (455gr) dark chocolate
• 10 tablespoons butter
• about 10 piled high tablespoons of icing sugar
• "coffee paste" (I used instant coffee powder, as much as I would use for a normal cup, but simply dissolved it in about 1 tablespoon of water. Next time, it's going to be milk!)

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F/180°C.
2. Beat sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time.
4. Add the vanilla.
5. Add all the dry ingredients and mix until well incorporated.
6. Add the Greek yogurt and the peanut butter and mix again.
7. Fill your dough into a cupcake tin lined with paper forms and put into the oven for 20 minutes. (Or until light brown and an inserted tooth pick comes out clean). Let them cool down.
8. For your frosting: Melt the chocolate. Add the coffee and the butter. And, up to your preferred consistency, add the icing sugar. With the coffee-water mixture our frosting got really really thick. It eventually softened a bit with the butter and the icing sugar but I still wouldn't go for any kind of watery-somethings in melted chocolate.
9. For the filling (optional): Cut a small whole into your cupcakes and fill it with peanut butter.
10. Top with icing. We also thought, since our cupcakes turned out super sweet, that some roughly sprinkled sea salt would be really good on those....or caramelised sea salted peanut crunchs on top....omg the possibilities are endless!!!!

And here's where we need a little explanation.

Because my friend and I obviously couldn't eat 20 cupcakes by ourselves (let's just say we couldn't. We actually don't really want to find out...probably: we could!) we also included out boyfriends into the baking planning. And with her and me plus bf's...the thing got interesting.
When it comes to baking I don't really mind if it gets unhealthy. This is supposed to be a treat. I want my treat to be awesome. So of course, it will include sugar. My friend is more the health nut. And her bf is simply super picky. So, at the end, we had four different cupcakes :D
- Yummy (aka unhealthy sugary :P) bb and coffee frosting
- Healthy pb and plain chocolate frosting
- No pb filling (there was still some in the dough though) and coffee frosting
- And...no pb filling and plain chocolate frosting

...and of course, I had to make little signs for all of them ;P

Enjoy your pb adventures! (Oh and my boyfriend told me earlier last week that if you would just read my blog and hear me talk about food, one would think I'm a fat person. How do we feel about that. I guess I'll take it as a compliment that I can talk and write about food like this but that I'm still not fat? Haha. It keeps me wondering...)

Running thoughts

I would never describe myself as a runner. But I do certainly run from times to time. And what I like about it most is what running teaches me about life. Seriously. I guess if I would have to, I would describe myself as a problem runner. Each and every time my head gets too cramped up with things or my body feels like it has too much energy to cope with (which normally is quite correlated to too many thoughts) I go out and run until I can't do it anymore.
Firstly I'll be pondering about stuff while I run, than I'll be too occupied by actually keeping in running and forget about the stuff, but at the end all the tangled thoughts will be straitened out. The magic of running haha (ok I might be dramatic here).

What running also has taught me, that you can't go faster than you actually can. Even if you want to, and you might sprint for a short period, you'll have to take a longer break after that and you'll be just a bit more exhausted. At the end, your time and the distance you left behind will be the same as if you would just have kept on with your steady speed.
But...and that's the cool point. If you go slow and steady for a long time, you'll get faster eventually. So. Go by a pace that you can handle and don't overdo it.

So much to my deep thoughts on running. Haha. And here's my running round right now (with some stalking at the end ;P):

Traditional Vancouver weather

Stretching break in the middle

Stalking someone. Can you tell I'm not good at it?! :D

We're getting there {One last mess before we'll be back to organized}

Before I'm heading into our long weekend I wanted to wrap up on a few other things.
Somehow, and this will sounds really weird, I won't have really settled into a place until this place has its own special blend of coffee. See, I told you this was going to be weird.
But this morning, this place got its own blend of coffee (and I'm on my second already) so I guess I really arrived now.

Having said this, I feel save now to bombard you with a few more random pictures until will get things more organised up from tomorrow on ;)

Earlier last week I went shopping (of course I did. Screw those good resolutions, right?!) and I'm more than happy with what I bought. You might get to see more of the things when I'll post about the weekend.

I couldn't help but share this beautiful muesli I had with you. SO yum. And even after 5 years...I'm definitely not sick yet of my muesli's every morning. This one was: fresh cherries, dried cranberries, almonds, granola (some 5 grain almond granola. Not the healthiest one but it definitely is super yummy) and plain non fat yogurt. But my routine varies every day depending on what I have on hand.

I love the view from this place. So naturally, I keep capturing it at different times of the day.

We went for a really awesome dinner somewhere later last week. You got all your stuff fresh and had to grill it yourself on the barbecue. Along with delicious crispy, saucy, sticky rice and salad. Oh and as a desert we had deep fried cream cheese pockets with vanilla ice cream and a honey cinnamon sauce. I would die for that stuff! 

I also couldn't resist those sweet smelling papayas yesterday...as well as the chocolate. There were SO many flavours!!! I feel like I want to try them all...though that might actually get in the way of me wanting to hold my weight...uhoh.

Mix matching quite a lot right now...

I had half of it today ♥

And sometimes, and that's kind of unrelated to the rest of the post but it just came up, I'm so grateful for all the people who surround me and who remember me that, what really is important is what's on the inside and what of that we choose to project to our outside. Because we all have both. The boring, the ugly, the passive, the discouraged, the impatient. But to focus on the joy, the friendliness, the warmth, the patience, the trust.... and to appreciate oneself and each other, that's what really makes people beautiful.

Oh and I'm totally hooked to the instagram videos right now (well, I'm messing around with them I guess) here is a sneak peak in my morning ;)

Back {and that in two ways!}

Despite the lacking posts, I didn’t forget my blog (how could I!?) and it feels so good to finally sit in front of this key board again and just happily tip away, sort of ordering the past events in my head. (Yeah, I do abuse my blog for personal organisation things. Figure) It also quite improves the situation to look out on grouse mountain, the sea and Stanley park and feel a humid cool breeze blow around you while typing. Jep. I love this place.

Anyways. The two weeks of work after my CELTA flew by and as much as I enjoyed being back with the kids, I’m happy to have lunch's now, where I can actually eat and not just constantly repeat all my requests of “please don’t do this. Hitting each other with the fork really isn’t such a great idea”. Phew. (But all the cuddles, kisses and smiles make up for it. And really, could there be anything better than to know that you’re providing a space of comfort and help and reassurance to the kids? No!)

And now I find myself back in one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever lived in. (Ever visited I might as well just add here). The first days were kind of a daze because things just kept jumping at me and I felt a bit like a smiling zombie, not really able to process everything. But it slowly made its way into my brain: I. Am. Really. Back. Jeez.

This definitely is a first for me. Coming back to a place I felt so at home at.

So here we go with a more or less random first day photo impression. Remember the smiling zombie? Hence, there really isn’t any sense or logic to the pictures ;)

I love airports. The vibe and the feeling of the excitement of so many people...oh and the light is always awesome :D

And that's where I found myself after 9 hours of flying around the world. Pretty awesome isn't it.

I also got treated to this really cute cupcake. Thank you Colleen!! ♥ And it was huge! (I should have taken a picture of the cupcake and me. Haha seriously, it was enough for two people to be full of cupcake)

Right after my arrival on Friday there was the Lululemon Half marathon which one of my friends ran. I do have the highest respect for people doing something like that. I could. never. ever. do this! The run was in the morning and there was one Yoga class and a concert after that in the evening. I really start loving Yoga. Maybe I should do that?

We had someone...uhm...to...uhm...entertain us? ;P

But I guess you can tell that we were definitely having fun!

Sunday's lunch was on Granville Island which I somehow missed to visit last year. Bummer. It's such a nice place! And the food at the market....I think I could just spent a whole weekend there admiring and eating the food (and this might actually really be true. Haha oh well)

Quiche and Pie for lunch. Yum.

And I got introduced to hockey. Which was really interesting to watch though I'm still stunned on how they manage to be that fast and secure on those Rollerblades! I don't even know how to stop when I'm just...well, rolling. Haha I might could learn something here.

The weather got a bit more cloudy by Monday but we're in Vancouver after all. So it' not really that much of a surprise.

Movie outdoor night on Tuesday. Dirty Dancing!

And a really nice and lazy day for me on Wednesday.

Hot Chai Lattes for my (a bit) sore throat

And I might just proudly add that I walked past all this and didn't buy a single thing!!! I'm a sucker for cute and colourful stationery.

And random pictures of curves and lines on my way home.

Otherwise, finally having time to calm down (haha I feel like I’m the most boring person alive right now. People constantly keep asking what I’m doing and the only answer they really can get is: Lying on a couch, sleeping, reading, eating. Sounds just perfect to me though!) I’m back to more self evaluations. I feel less secure with myself recently and more doubting my plans, being picky with my body and insecure of what people might think of me. So I might actually also use my three weeks here to just get some time to figure out a bit about myself. The last six month in my life just changed a lot and it might be that I’m not really keeping up with it? But just admitting this already makes me feel better. We don’t have to be perfect right?!

With that I’ll leave you for now but there are going to be more regular posts from now on. I really did miss my writing. Such a calming effect. Yeah. I’m weird.

So thanks for being so patient with me over the last 2 month!