Easy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

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These chocolate peanut butter cupcakes have a base of a rich, dark, moist chocolate cupcake with a creamy peanut butter frosting topped with crushed Reese’s peanut butter cups.

I’m so happy to be sharing this cupcake with you today. I love the combination of the dark chocolate cupcake and the nice, light, and fluffy peanut butter frosting. If you’re a peanut butter lover, you will love this cupcake as much as we do. Then you can top it with some delicious Reese’s peanut butter cups or finish it off with a nice drizzle of chocolate syrup.

Ingredients for Chocolate Cupcakes

Flour Use all-purpose flour for this recipe, but you can also use cake flour or gluten-free flour.
Cocoa Powder Any kind of cocoa powder will work for these cupcakes; I like to use anything from Dutch-process cocoa all the way to dark black cocoa. If I want really dark chocolate, I like black cocoa.
Baking Soda to make the cupcake rise and be nice a fluffy.
Salt Essential, when you’re baking a chocolate item, salt will bring out the flavor.
Vegetable Oil I like to use oil instead of butter for these cupcakes.
Sugar I like to use brown sugar but you can replace it with granulated sugar.
Eggs at room temperature
Vanilla Extract adds a great vanilla flavor, by using pure vanilla you will have the best flavor but any vanilla extract will work.
Buttermilk you can use milk, sour cream, or plain yogurt as an alternative but I like to use buttermilk because of the acidity and how it gives you a tender and super moist texture.
Brewed Coffee I like to use brewed coffee that has slightly cooled, you don’t get the strong flavor of coffee but goes perfectly with chocolate and leaves you with a moist cupcake.

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Frosting

Butter You want to use unsalted butter when it comes to desserts, but definitely when it has a peanut butter element because, depending on the type of peanut butter, it can be salty. So you want to be able to control the amount of salt in your dessert. You also want your butter to be in the room before making your frosting you should be able to press the back of a spoon easily into the butter.
Peanut Butter You obviously need peanut butter to make this frosting; you want to use creamy peanut butter.
Vanilla Make sure to use good-quality vanilla or make your own pure vanilla. It helps give the frosting richness and a nice depth of flavor.
Powdered Sugar This is what adds sweetness to the frosting. You want to make sure there are no clumps in the sugar, so sifting it to a nice, fine powder is what you want.
Heavy Cream You can use whipping cream or heavy cream; it helps to give the frosting richness as well as thin it out as needed.
Peanut butter Cups you can chop them into pieces and garnish the top of your cupcake or if you can find them get mini peanut butter cups and place one on top all get options.

How to Make Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350°F and prepare baking pan and cupcake liners
Dry ingredients whisk together the dry ingredients
Wet Ingredients stir in sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk, and stir until combined.
Bake divide the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 22-24 minutes, use a toothpick to test to make sure the cupcakes are done.
Cool Allow cupcakes to cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then allow them to finish cooling completely on a rack

How to Make Peanut Butter Frosting

Butter beat in a large mixing bowl until smooth
Peanut butter add the peanut butter and mix until combined
Powdered sugar add half of the powdered sugar until combined
Remaining ingredients add vanilla, salt, and heavy cream until combined
Remaining powdered sugar add the rest of the powdered sugar until combined
Consistency Depending on the consistency you might need to add a little more heavy cream until it reaches the desired consistency.
Pipe onto cupcakes fill a piping bag either a reusable one or disposable both work and place a piping tip inside the bag I like to use Wilton’s #1 M.
Garnish crushed peanut butter cups and sprinkle on top or place a mini peanut butter cup on top.

Tips for Success

The process of making these cupcakes from scratch isn’t much different than making the average cupcake. Here are a few tips to help you have a successful cupcake.

Room temperature Bringing your butter and eggs to room temperature is one of the more important tips; it will ensure that everything combines more easily.
Overmixing the batter To ensure you are not overmixing the batter, stop mixing once the ingredients are all incorporated. If you overmix, you risk messing with the texture of the cupcake.
Don’t overfill cupcake liners As easy as it can be to fill the liner all the way to the top, you should only fill it halfway to 2/3 of the way up. If you fill them too much, they will spill over or have the risk of rising up and then collapsing.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I store these cupcakes?

Place these cupcakes in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Can you freeze Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes?

Yes, these freeze very well. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to use them allow them to come up to room temperature and enjoy!

What is the best way to fill cupcake liners?

For the best results, I like to use a medium-sized cookie scoop or ice cream scoop to get the batter into the liner as well as to keep the size of every cupcake consistent.

Can I Use Crunchy Peanut Butter?

I don’t like to use crunchy peanut butter because when you try to pipe it onto the cupcake, the pieces of peanut get caught up inside the piping tip. My suggestion is always to stick with creamy peanut butter for this recipe.