Lebekuchen Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream

Name: Peanut Butter Buttercream
Prep time: 25 min
Ingredients: 3/4 cup butter, room temperature; 1/4 cup peanut butter (I used smooth and creamy); 8 cups powdered sugar; 1/2 cup milk

by Lora Wiley-Lennartz January 16, 2011

written by Lora Wiley-Lennartz January 16, 2011

Lebekuchen Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream

Dear Germany: This month marks 10 years since I have taken up residence within your borders. It’s certainly hard to believe how quickly time has flown. I came to Germany for work and stayed for love. To celebrate this occasion, I made cupcakes in flavors reflecting the marriage between a traditional German flavor (lebkuchen – German gingerbread spice) and a classic American one (Peanut Butter).

I would like to thank you for the following:

1) First of all, my very own McDreamy incredible husband, the one and only Dr. B.

2) My wonderful in-laws/ extended German family and their animals including the chickens who produce amazing eggs to bake with, Lucy the sheep who thinks she’s a dog, Rosalie the dwarf goat, Queenie the wunderhund and two aloof and affectionate cats.

3) All the wonderful friends I have made and all those late night girls evenings in Munich of talk, tears, and laughter. Erin, Margaux, Marina, I’m talking to you ladies.

4) The incredible fun I had working here coaching talent and television hosts, also creating and shaping TV shows and teaching young TV producers to fly.

5) Our beautiful home in the country.

6) Health Care

7) All the Oktoberfests and Karnevals and Christmas markets and one fantastic World Cup celebration.

8) Skiing and snowboarding in your alps and visiting so many of your wonderful, beautiful cities and villages so rich with history and architecture.

9) Finally, Deutsche Ordnung (German order). While it makes me crazy sometimes., like Dr. B says, “Everyone makes fun of it, but everyone benefits.”

Now if you could only do something about these:

1) Your ridiculous tax laws

2) The mountains of paperwork and rules that come with every day living

3) The weather

4) The language, specifically the articles. One word of advice for you, the word “THE”

Love,

The Mad Hausfrau

These cupcakes reflect both sides of my international life, flavors of both German and American. Furthermore, I colored the peanut butter buttercream to represent the colors of the German flag.

For the cupcakes

Maybe you already have a favorite vanilla cupcake recipe. If so, use that one. My favorite is the Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake recipe Here

I added two teaspoons of lebkuchen spice to the recipe. You can also use gingerbread spice. However, a recipe for mixing your own lebkuchen spice can be found HERE.

Peanut Butter Buttercream

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Buttercream

Prep Time 25 minutes

Author Lora Wiley-Lennartz

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup peanut butter (I used smooth and creamy)
8 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup milk

Instructions

Directions:

Cream together the butter and peanut butter.
add 2 cups of the powdered sugar and blend
Alternate adding the rest of the sugar and the milk until you reach the desired consistency

For the Decorating:

Divided the frosting into three equal parts and tint each part with paste food coloring. For the colors of the German flag, use Wilton's black, red-red and yellow gold.
Fit a disposable pastry bag with a star tip and fill it with each of the three colors on separate sides of the inside of the bag.
Seal the top of the bag with a clip or a rubber band and pipe the swirls on the cupcakes.

cupcake color swirl cupcakes German Flag frosting German gingerbread spice mix German theme cupcakes Lebkuchen cupcakes Lebkuchen cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream Magnolia Bakery Cupcakes peanut butter frosting

Lora Wiley-Lennartz

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4 comments

Anonymous January 23, 2011 - 10:26 am

Congratulations on 10 years as an expat! Funnily enough, my 10-year expataversary comes this year too, in October. I also came for work and stayed for love. Probably a common theme, which makes me think that love still does make the world go round. Or at least makes us go round the world!

As for the cupcakes, well they have enlightened me on the nature of your pairing with Dr. B. He goes off and does good work to balance out the evil you do in the kitchen! Just too yummy for words. 🙂

UrMomCooks January 19, 2011 - 4:41 am

Love ur post! It's fascinating to hear about adventures overseas… And ur cupcakes are awesome!

Alma January 18, 2011 - 7:26 am

I love your post!!!! and your cupcakes!!!!!!

by the way, I totally agree with your number 4… I always mumble 4 or 5 different versions of the article, in all genres possible, until I reach the correct one!!! ahahahha.

but being from Spain, number 3 is my main concern: Can someone put the sun back in the sky?? And take the rain away? Please??? ahahahaha

Anonymous January 17, 2011 - 4:48 pm

LOVE this post. Especially the things you'd like to have changed about Deutschland.

Number 2 made me grunt in agreeance.

Number 4 made me laugh out loud.

Bonus in this post: The cupcake porn.

Danke!