Goodbye Sher Hunka Burning Love

When I first started lurking on food blogs, I came across a cupcake contest, and entered in this cupcake contest was the most magical sounding Hunka Hunka Burning Love Cupcakes entered by Sherry of What Did You Eat? They were a banana cupcake with a chunk of chocolate stuck in them, topped with a peanut butter frosting. A beautiful tribute to Elvis. Two things happened when I found this cupcake. The first thing was that I copied down the recipe. And I made it. And I made it again. And again. I LOVE these cupcakes. I personally don't feel there is any possible way to improve upon them. I even lurked on Sher's site looking for more recipes that could possibly be as delicious. The second thing that happened was I was inspired to start my own food blog. Those cupcake contests looked like fun. And they are!

Unfortunately for the world and for food bloggers in general, we lost Sherry July 20th to a sudden heart attack. Her blog is still up and if you haven't already visited it, go look. Sherry had a wonderful sense of humor and her goodness and love of cats shown through in every post. Her passing leaves a big hole. There's also a beautiful tribute to her on A Fridge Full of Food, posted by her very close friend Glenna.

As a special memorial, today, around the blogosphere, people are choosing recipes off Sherry's blog and posting about them. I'm actually on vacation, but hopefully scheduler will be working and this will post. I didn't have the bananas to make the Hunka Hunka Burning Love Cupcakes that propelled me into the world of food blogging, but I did make the frosting. After all, the peanut butter frosting had special memories for her. And I've never made peanut butter frosting without that pinch of cayenne since making Sherry's frosting. It just isn't the same.

We'll miss you Sherry.

Here's how the frosting appears as she posted it:

Peanut Butter Frosting (Adapted from Meta Givens)
(Note: I doubled this recipe and had a little left over. I froze it. For another day!)

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup peanut butter

3 cups powdered sugar

2-4 Tbsp. milk

1/8 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

1 small pinch cayenne pepper (Optional) Be careful!

PREPARATION:In large bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, and 2 Tbsp. milk. Mix well, adding more milk as needed to make a fluffy spreadable frosting. Frosts 8" layer cake or sides of 9" layer cake