Thursday, April 14, 2011

Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cupcakes

While doing some grocery shopping the other day, I walked past this cute little chocolate store and caught sight of some Reese's peanut butter cups from outside. Man, you should have seen how fast I ran into the store to get them!

I had been wanting to make peanut butter cupcakes for a while, so I bought the mini ones. It was so hard to resist stuffing them into my face before I finished baking =P

As it turns out there was a charity bake sale going on at my uni to raise funds for Japan and Christchurch so I happily gave 12 of these away =)

Below is the recipe which I sourced from Sweet Pea's Kitchen. I found the icing a little bit hard to work with.. I think it's because of the peanut butter, which gets dry really quickly!

  • 8 tablespoons unsalted butter

  • 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

  • 1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder

  • 2 eggs

  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar

  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  • 1/2 teaspoon table salt

  • 1/2 cup sour cream

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Frosting:



  • 1 cup icing sugar

  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter

  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

  • 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

  • 1/3 cup heavy cream
  1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pan with baking cup liners.

  2. In a medium heatproof bowl, combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and combined. Set aside and cool until just warm to the touch.

  3. In a small bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder; set aside.

  4. In a medium bowl, whisk eggs; add sugar, vanilla, and salt until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift one-third of flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined. Sift remaining flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until batter is combined.

  5. Divide the batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean.

  6. Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing.

  7. To make frosting, place the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl as you work. Add the heavy cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth. Place frosting into decorating bag fitted with the 1M decorating tip and approximately 1/4″ above cupcake top at a 90° angle to cupcake surface, pipe a spiral of icing, beginning at the outer edge and working inward. Place halved peanut butter cup on top of frosting.

10 comments:

  1. No WAY! These are the greatest things I've ever seen! I love that you stuck a mini Reese's cup in the top. Yum....

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  2. Great looking cupcakes, these are going to be good, thinking maybe instead of easter eggs we are going to hunt for cupcakes.

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  3. these look great! Im sure they taste just as amazing! you cant go wrong with chocolate & peanut butter!

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  4. Oh mmmmy goodness these look great! I am a PB+Chocolate addict and these are right up my alley!

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  5. Thank you everyone! YeaDefinitely can't go wrong with PB and choc! =) Give it a try! The cupcakes were so soft and airy and the icing really complemented it. Yummmmmm

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  6. I am so glad you enjoyed these...these are definitely one of my favorite cupcake recipes! :)

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  7. Hi there! I definitely did enjoy them, thanks so much for sharing this amazing recipe (and for stopping by here)! =)

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  8. I'm new to baking- yet determined to teach myself~ I started with this, and have to say they came out great!!! :D they just turned out a bit dry- but frosting made up for that. ;D
    I may not understand it all yet...but this was a great recipe to start with! thanks for posting!

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  9. Hi Justin, I'm so glad you gave it a go! Hope you keep baking and keep having fun! =)

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