Chocolate Peanut Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting

These are easy and delicious! I made these using my ‘Easy Peasy Chocolate Cake’ recipe as a base (I am starting to feel a bit like Marge Simpson in the episode where she changes the same Chanel suit into different outfits, so I will have to try something new soon) and added Peanut Butter (oh so good!).

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ½ cups flour
1 egg
½ cup milk
150g butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons peanut butter (I used crunchy and actually added it to the butter to melt so it wouldn’t thicken the mixture and would be evenly distributed)
Pinch of salt
½ cup boiling water

Place all ingredients in a bowl EXCEPT the water.
Add water to all the other ingredients and mix. Once you have a nicely combined batter place batter into 18 cupcake papers and bake in a 180°C oven (fan bake). They should take about 10 minutes but you will know they are ready when they spring back to the touch and a skewer can be inserted and removed cleanly.

*I tried to be a bit fancy with mine and popped a ‘Rolo’ in the middle of the cupcake but it kind of disappeared – you could taste it and kind of see where it was (see pictures below) but I think when I make these again I might try popping in a piece of a ‘Snickers Bar’ or injecting some caramel.


I topped mine with a peanut butter buttercream frosting, and a couple of salted peanuts for decoration – which really topped it off, the salty taste of the peanut against the sweet frosting was a delicious contrast .

To make buttercream icing you will need:
125g butter (room temperature)
1-2 tablespoons peanut butter (again I used crunchy)
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3-4 cups icing sugar (sifted)

Beat the butter and peanut butter until it is light and fluffy, add in the first 2 cups of icing sugar as well as one tablespoon of milk and vanilla essence. Continue to add the rest of your icing sugar gradually as well as the second tablespoon of milk (if your icing is too stiff just add small amounts of additional milk until you are happy with the consistency). Pipe or spoon onto your cupcakes and decorate as desired.