Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

If I were forced to choose, I would say that my very favorite flavor combination is that of chocolate and peanut butter. I have a good friend whom I nearly had to cut ties with when I discovered that while she likes chocolate and peanut butter, she does not like them together. This boggles my mind. Boggles, I tell you! I'm sure there are more of you out there -- probably closing out of your browser tab as you read this -- but for the rest of you, I hope that you love this chocolate cupcake, filled and topped with creamy peanut butter. I sure do!

I made these sweet little lovelies for my husband's birthday, and they were a great success. Perfectly chocolatey cupcakes, not too light and not too dark, with a heavenly core of peanut butter goodness. The icing has great peanut butter flavor and isn't too light and fluffy (I want a little more substance).

I even had to chance to experiment with my icing kit which I am pretty wretched at using. (I did not include my first disastrous attempts, but I probably should have just for the yuks.) But really, all you need is a butter knife and you can just slather that icing right on the top. No need for frills. On that note, don't be intimidated by the lengthy recipe below. There are a few steps, but it really isn't very difficult or time consuming (if it was, I wouldn't bother with it myself.)

Peanut Butter-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

adapted from Annie's Eats and Ina Garten


Makes 24 cupcakes.

Ingredients:


For the filling:


• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar

• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the cake:


• 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt

• 1 cup sour cream

• 2 tbsp. milk

• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

• 8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 
2 large eggs

For the peanut butter icing:

• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two muffin tins with 12 cupcake liners.


To make the filling: Combine the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla extract in a bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until well combined. Roll the mixture into 1-inch balls (at least 24) and set aside on a baking sheet.

To make the cake batter: Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; whisk together and set aside. In a liquid measuring cup, stir together the sour cream, milk and vanilla extract. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (I used a hand mixer), combine the butter and sugar, and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed.  With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.  Mix just until incorporated.

Spoon a tablespoon or two of batter into the bottom of each cupcake liner.  Place a ball of the peanut butter filling in each cupcake well and top with the remaining batter so that all the cups are filled. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. When the cupcakes are completely cool, top with peanut butter icing.

To make the peanut butter icing:
Place the confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (again, I used a hand mixer). Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Pumpkin muffins loaded with warm autumn spices and a delicious cream cheese center.  The epitome of fall! The type of recipe you make yourself and realize tastes much better than the coffee shop version! Behold:

This is another of those classic autumn recipes that we have seen making the rounds on Pinterest, so we pounced on the very first cool weather day to make these beauties.  We found lots of very similar versions of this recipe online (Annie’s Eats and See Brooke Cook to name two).  Let me tell you about how we’ve simplified them, just for discussion’s sake.

First of all, most recipes call for you to form the sweetened cream cheese into a log, wrap it in plastic, freeze it, then slice off medallions to plop into the center of the muffins.  The honest reason we didn’t do this is because we were too far along when we actually read this part of the recipe.  Oops, totally my fault.  I am the non-meticulous one.  We were so sad, thinking that our muffins would be a mess when they came out of the oven.  But they weren’t – the filling didn’t melt away and it all turned out quite beautifully. Whew!

Next, most recipes called for the inclusion of both “pumpkin pie spice” as well as most of the individual components of pumpkin pie spice. We found this confusing and also we don’t keep pumpkin pie spice on hand, so we broke the spice mixture down into its basic parts (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and clove).  This is nice and flexible – feel free to ad lib here; it will be OK if you leave a few out as long as you keep the cinnamon.

The other thing we did was reduce the sugar and oil in this recipe.  Now – you know us, and it wasn’t for health reasons but instead for taste reasons.  Many comments on the original recipes said the muffins were overly oily, so we reduced it a smidge. Then we started thinking that 1/2 cup sugar combined with 4 oz cream cheese would result in an uber-sweet filling, so we chopped the sugar amount in half. Last but not least, 1 cup of sugar in a recipe for 12 muffins seemed like a lot, so we reduced that to 3/4 cup and were very happy with the results.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Yield 12 muffins

Cream Cheese Filling

• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1/4 cup sugar

Whip together cream cheese and sugar very well.  We’ve done this with a fork, a hand mixer, and a food processor – anything works.  When it is all combined, pop it back in the fridge to stay cold while you prep the rest of the muffins.  Having this mixture as cool as possible will prevent the cream from melting away too much during baking.  The results in the picture were created with the cream mixture left at room temperature, though, so don’t worry too much about this cooling step!

Muffins

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Our own version of “Pumpkin Pie Spices”; feel free to ad lib a little based on what you have on hand.  Nothing is essential other than the cinnamon.

• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves

Mix the sugar, oil, pumpkin, and eggs together very well in a large mixing bowl.  Then plop the flour, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spices on top of this blended wet mixture.  Stir well to incorporate and fully mix everything together. 

Line muffin tins with paper cups, or lightly oil them. Spoon about 1-2 Tablespoons of batter into the bottom of each muffin.  We used a regular dinner spoon – heaping – to do this.  Make sure this batter is spread thinly and evenly across the bottom of each muffin tin.  I whacked mine flat on the counter a few times to accomplish this.

Next, distribute a spoonful (approx 1 Tablespoon) of the cream cheese filling in each.

Finally, evenly distribute the remainder of the batter over the top of the cream cheese.  Approx 2-3 Tablespoons each is what we came out with.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.  Let cool before you eat them, unless you are ready to deal with molten cream cheese!