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Have a peanut butter lover in your life? You have to bake them these Ultimate Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes! Featuring moist chocolate cupcakes that are stuffed with a peanut butter cup, topped with peanut butter frosting, milk chocolate peanut butter ganache, and chopped peanuts, these are always a crowd-pleaser!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Hello my friends, happy Halloween! I hope you have some major fun on the books for this weekend. Tell me. How are you celebrating? Are you dressing up? Carving pumpkins? Trick-or-treating? My family is coming up to visit and I’m pretty sure we’re going to spend the entire weekend binging on old horror flicks and gobbling down fun-sized candy bars. We Halloween hard.
Given the holiday at hand, it’s probably no surprise I have candy on the brain. I love all candy (have you seen this leftover Halloween candy cookie cake?!?) but one of my favorites is peanut butter cups. How can you not love creamy sweet peanut butter drenched in a chocolate shell? I mean… H-O-W?
And these gorgeous cupcakes? They’re all about the peanut butter cup!!! It’s peanut butter chocolate time. ← Cue the happy dance.
This easy homemade peanut butter frosting is a far cry from that dull, overly sweet, tooth-ache-in-a-jar frosting you’re used to finding at the store. The best part? It’s made with simple, easy to find ingredients. For this frosting you’ll need butter, peanut butter, vanilla extract, salt, and confectioners’ sugar. That’s it! No yucky or hard to pronounce ingredients here.
You’ll beat the butter and peanut butter smooth, add in the remaining ingredients, and whip to fluffy frosting perfection. It’ll be ready in 5 minutes!!! Not too shabby.
These cupcakes are everything you could want and more! Bake, devour, and don’t apologize.
More Peanut Butter Recipes:
- Salted Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles
- Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Cheesecake
- Soft Batch Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies
- Creamy Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie
- Peanut Butter Cup Brownies
- Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzel Cheesecake Cupcakes
Ultimate Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes:
- 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (160 grams)
- 1 cup unsweetened non-alkalized (natural) cocoa powder (112 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons *canola oil
- 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter
- 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate (60%), finely chopped
- 1 cup (198 grams) granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup (142 grams) light brown sugar, packed
- 2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 cup (227 grams) full fat sour cream
- 1 cup (227 grams) freshly boiled hot water
- 24 peanut regular sized butter cups
For the Peanut Butter Frosting:
- 1 and 3/4 cups (396 grams) unsalted butter, very soft
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 5 cups confectioners' sugar, more only if needed
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons milk
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
Milk Chocolate Ganache (Optional):
- 1/2 cup (85 grams) milk chocolate OR semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
- 1 Tablespoons creamy peanut butter
- 1/3 cup (76 grams) heavy cream
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Garnish (Optional):
- 24 peanut butter cups
- 1/4 cup chopped peanuts
Instructions
For the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F). Line (2) 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners. Spray lightly with non-stick baking spray, and set aside.
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside until needed.
- Combine the oil, butter, and chocolate together in a large bowl. Heat in the microwave, in 30 second increments, stirring between increments each time, until the butter and chocolate are completely melted. Set aside and cool while you assemble the other ingredients.
- In a large bowl, combine both sugars, eggs, egg yolk, and vanilla and beat until smooth and well combined.
- Gradually add in the melted chocolate mixture, adding a little bit at a time and whisking constantly.
- Gently fold in the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the sour cream, beginning and ending with the flour. Mix gently and stop when you can still see the lightest trail of dry ingredients.
- Pour in the hot coffee (or water) and let it sit for 30 seconds, then fold it into the batter until combined.
- Scoop 2 tablespoons of batter into the bottom of each cupcake tin, then press a peanut butter cup into the batter. Top with another 3 tablespoons of batter; each cupcake mold should be 2/3 of the way full.
- Bake, one tray at a time, for 16 to 18 minutes, or until the cupcakes have puffed up and a toothpick (or cake tester) inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs attached.
- Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting!
For the Peanut Butter Frosting:
- In a large bowl, using a handheld electric mixer, or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter on medium-speed until completely smooth. Beat in the vanilla.
- Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add in the sugar, adding a 1/2 cup at a time, beating until the sugar has incorporated into the frosting before adding more. Once all of the sugar has been added, beat in the milk.
- Increase mixer speed to medium-high and beat for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the frosting is thick and creamy.
- Finally, fold in the beat butter and beat on medium-high for 1 minute. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl, to ensure all ingredients have been combined.
- Scrape the frosting into a piping bag fitted with an open star piping tip, like this one.
For the Milk Chocolate Ganache:
- Finely chop the chocolate and place it in a small heatproof bowl. Set aside.
- Warm the cream over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Add in the peanut butter and whisk smooth.
- Pour the cream over the chopped chocolate and let it sit for 1 minute, then whisk smooth. Whisk in the salt.
Assembly:
- Pipe a swirl of peanut butter frosting on top of each cooled cupcake.
- Using a small spoon, slowly drizzle the milk chocolate peanut butter ganache over the top of each cupcake. Start with a little bit, and add more if desired.
- Decorate the edge of each cupcake with a few chopped peanuts. Then press a peanut butter cup (or two!) in the middle of each cupcake! Enjoy!
- These cupcakes are best eaten the day they are made, but will keep, covered and stored at room temperature, for 2 days.
Notes
- Vegetable oil or melted coconut oil would also work. Or any neutral flavored oil you have on hand.
- These cupcakes are best eaten the day they are made, but will keep, covered and stored at room temperature, for 2 days.
- I do not have an egg substitution for this recipe.
I’m planning to make these for my son’s birthday (and super excited to try them!!!) but I’m needing to split the batch for two smaller celebrations. I know it says best to eat day of or within two days. Do these freeze well? Any directions with that process? (Freezing/defrosting/timing?)?
These turned out beautiful and delicious for Father’s Day. The peanut butter frosting is divine. Although the frosting calls for salt, it’s not included in the instructions. I added it with the vanilla step and it worked great.
I don’t usually write reviews for recipes…but it’s THAT good. Seriously. So moist, flavors are balanced, these blew my mind. The only “problem” is that the frosting recipe makes quite a bit more than you may need; I frosted 24 cupcakes and still had several cups of frosting left over, so you may want to scale back! Truly SUCH a good recipe though.
Aww thank you so much for letting me know!
Can this recipe be doubled?
It’s my go-to for chocolate cake and cupcakes, everybody thinks it’s amazing!
I made it in a large KitchenAid mixer and it was pretty full. I wouldn’t double the batter and you definitely couldn’t double the frosting.
Made for our sons 28th birthday. Used the mini Reese’s cups and only had extra chunky peanut butter for the frosting, they are soooo good. Son and coworkers loved them!
In the directions, it says to mix the oil, chips and butter then set aside but never says when to reincorporate them? Is this part of the cupcake batter?
Hi! Followed this recipe exactly, measuring in grams even. I had a 12 and a 6 muffin tin pan. Filled each cup with 2T, Reese’s, and then 2.5T (3 would have overflowed). They baked for 18 minutes, mushroomed over the tops, and were liquid on the toothpick when inserted. Left them in an additional 5. And now they are all deflating! Any troubleshooting tips?!
These are delicious! My husband requested these for his birthday and everyone loved them! I think the peanut butter cup inside was a little too sweet, but everyone else thought it was the best part. I ended up only having 13 cupcakes when I followed the recommendation of doing 2 tablespoons of batter on the bottom of the peanut butter cup and 3 on top. I also had to cook them for about 25 minutes. I think I would instead do 1 tablespoon on bottom and 2 on top. Anyway, this is a great recipe! Thank you!
Have you ever made these as mini cupcakes? We love these, but would like to make small ones.
These cupcakes are UNREAL! I followed the recipe exactly and used the coffee instead of hot water. I was worried it would have a coffee flavor but it truly brought out the rich chocolate flavor! I brought these to a cookout and they were a hit! People couldn’t stop taking about how they were the “best ever”! Thank you for such an amazing recipe, saving this!