Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

This week, there was only one thing I wanted to bake - chocolate and peanut butter.  I just wasn’t sure how I wanted to do it.  Would I put a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup in the cupcakes?  Would peanut butter chips be better?  Or should they simply be chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting? In the end, I stuck with a recipe from one of my favorite blogs, How Sweet It Is, made a couple minor changes and tried out all three versions.  I also got to try out this beautiful frosting technique I’ve been wanting to try for months!  JACKPOT! What variations have you tried on your favorite recipes?

Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Ingredients:

1 1/8 cups flour
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ¼ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla 
½ cup milk
3 tbs. heavy cream
½ cup butter, melted and cooled
2 tbs. sour cream
(Mini Reese’s, peanut butter chips if you’d like to incorporate!) 
*Note: recipe makes one dozen (When I made it, I tripled for enough cupcakes to do some test runs)

Tools:
Small saucepan
Stand mixer with paddle attachment
Medium bowl 
Sifter
¼ cup measuring cup
Cupcake tin
Cupcake liners

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350˚ F.  Mix together egg and brown sugar until smooth.  Add in cream, milk, vanilla, and sour cream. 

Melt the butter on the stove and let cool.  In the medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. Mix into the butter and sugar mixture in the stand mixer.  Pour in the butter and mix until fully incorporated. 

Place ¼ cup of the batter into lined cupcake tin.  To add a Reese’s peanut butter cup in the middle of the cupcake, pour 1/8 cup of the batter into lined tin, place peanut butter cup in the middle and pour the remaining 1/8 cup into the tin.  If you’d like to add peanut butter chips, pour 1/8 cup of the batter in the tin and drop a small handful of peanut butter chips in the middle.  Then add the remaining batter. Bake for apx. 16 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool completely before frosting.

Here is how the three turned out.  From left to right: peanut butter chips, Reese’s peanut butter cup in the center, plain chocolate.  In the end I made the plain chocolate cupcakes because the extra additions (chips and peanut butter cup) got lost in the peanut butter frosting.  But they were all extra delicious. Note: some of the middles of the cupcakes can sink in the middle if taken out of the oven very quickly - simply frost over for beautiful results.  

Peanut Butter Frosting
Recipe adapted from Food.com 

1 stick very softened butter
½ cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar (I added extra to thicken the frosting)
Pinch of salt (apx. ¼ tsp. salt)
½ tsp. vanilla
1 tbs. heavy cream
*Note: Recipe makes enough frosting for about a dozen cupcakes

Tools:
Stand mixer with paddle attachment
Piping bag
Wilton 2D tip  

Directions:
Mix butter and peanut butter together until very smooth.  Add in powdered sugar and salt.  Mix in vanilla and have cream.  Combine all until smooth.

To frost, begin frosting in the middle of the cupcake and work your way out.