Description
These Chocolate Swirled Peanut Butter Blast Cupcakes are a chocolate peanut butter lover’s dream! They’re the perfect cupcakes to satisfy your sweet tooth!
Ingredients
The Best Chocolate Cake Ever
- 1 box devil’s food cake mix
- 1 small pkg Jello instant chocolate pudding mix
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups mini chocolate chips
Peanut Butter Cake
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 4 eggs
- 1 box butter cake mix
- 2/3 cup water
Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
- 4 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
Sweet Milk Chocolate Ganache
- 1.5 cup milk chocolate chips
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
For the Chocolate Cake
In a very large bowl, mix together everything except chocolate chips until well combined. Batter will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips.
For the Peanut Butter Cake
In the workbowl of a mixer, combine 1/2 cup peanut butter and 1/2 cup butter. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add eggs one at time, mixing well after each addition. Add approximately 1/3 of the cake mix and 1/3 of the water, and mix on low speed until just combined. Repeat 2 more times with remaining cake mix and water.
For the Peanut Butter Buttercream Frosting
Place the peanut butter, butter, sugar, cream and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. If necessary, add more cream, one tablespoon at a time, beating for 1-2 minutes after each addition until desired consistency is reached.
For the Sweet Milk Chocolate Ganache
Place chocolate chips in a glass or heat-proof bowl. In a medium saucepan, whisk the heavy cream, vanilla, and sugar and bring to a simmer. Pour over the chocolate chips, let sit for 5 minutes, then whisk until completely smooth. Chill in the fridge for 1 hour or until the ganache reaches a thick, frosting consistency.
Note: I warned you it was sweet :) I absolutely love it and think it’s perfect the way it is — plain or when paired with the peanut butter buttercream above. But you can leave out the sugar and/or use a darker chocolate if you’ve ever not liked a dessert because it was “too sweet”. Me, personally, that’s never happened! :)
For the Cupcake Assembly
Preheat oven to 350. Grease and line standard-sized muffin tins. Add approximately 2 tbsp of peanut butter cake batter first, then 2 tbsp of chocolate cake batter to each tin. I used this cookie scoop from OXO, found at Target. Use a spoon or knife to gently fold and swirl cake batter. For STANDARD cupcakes, bake at 350 for 18-22 minutes. For MINI cupcakes, add approximately 2 teaspoons of each batter to mini muffin tins, and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
How to Pipe Swirled Frosting
Katie at Good Life Eats has a fabulous tutorial for this neat swirled frosting technique:
Top with crushed mini Reese’s cups.
Enjoy!