Peanut Butter Frosting Recipe

I have a lot of really great friends and sisters, but at the center of that venn diagram lives Candice. (To all my other best friends and sisters, remember "best friend" is a tier, not a person.) Having a best-friend-sister is one of my favorite parts of life.

Imagine all the things you do with your sister—borrow clothes, say anything without fear of judgment, talk about weird haircuts you had as a 4-year-old—and imagine all the things you do with a best friend—eat food, hang out, complain. Combine those two humans and that's what Candice is for me. On top of that, we're only a year apart, so we basically lived the same life until we left home for college. For eighteen years, were often referred to as one unit. "The girls," they called us.

I don't mean to get sentimental with all of this. Instead, I'm trying to prove just how well we know each other. We text constantly, we use the same weird turns of phrase and we can pull off small cons without making eye contact.

When you know someone this well, surprises simply don't happen. And that's why her peanut butter frosting was such a revelation.

I know how Candice cooks and vice versa. I can tell you she likes to use a lot of onion, she eats lots of sweet sauces and she always adds cornmeal when she's dredging a chicken breast. She makes one of the best chocolate cakes ev-er and she loves bittersweet chocolate ganache almost as much as she loves ketchup.

At Easter dinner, though, she pulled out something completely new. She'd made chocolate cupcakes (her classic recipe) with peanut butter frosting. Now, if you told me this frosting came out of an artisanal Brooklyn bakery, or an upscale French patisserie, I would have believed you.

So when Candice told me she made the frosting herself, from scratch with a recipe she just sort of made up on the spot, I was shocked. Not because I was surprised Candice made something so delicious, but because I was surprised anyone made a cupcake frosting that delicious. Let alone someone who I know inside-and-out.

I worked at a cupcake store for two years and lived in NYC for the height of the cupcake trend. I know cupcakes, and this was, by far, the  tastiest frosting I'd ever put in my mouth.

Before she could forget what she did, I had Candice scribble down her recipe on a napkin. She got particular with her ingredients, so I'm sharing what she wrote, word-for-word. It may be specific, but holy cow, it's worth it.

Oh, and Candice suggests you use this frosting atop David Lebovitz's chocolate cake.

Peanut Butter Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter (GOOD BUTTER! Like Kerrygold.)
• 1 cup peanut butter (shitty kind makes it good - like Key Food brand heh)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (I have this vanilla that my boss brought back to me from Mexico. Instead of tasting like it's got an alcohol base, it tastes like a water base. Not sure if that matters.)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• confectioners sugar (Enough, to make it sweet - up to 1 1/2 cups)
• 2 Tbsp whole milk

Cooking Directions

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a medium bowl, combine butter and peanut butter. Beat to combine.
2. Add vanilla, salt, and 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar and beat, starting slow so that the sugar doesn't fly everywhere. Continue to beat until well combined. Taste frosting for sweetness and add in more sugar, 1/4 cup at a time until desired sweetness is reached.
3. Finally add in milk and beat to smoothen batter a bit. Refrigerate if not using immediately; remove from fridge 1 hour prior to frosting your cakes!