Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Whipped Cream

Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Whipped Cream

These cupcakes were made with my friend Liz in mind. The cupcake itself is very dense, so the whipped cream provides a nice contrast. That said, because of the chocolate it will solidify and get kind of a weird texture, so you want to make it right before you serve these cupcakes, and don't let them get too chilled, because it really doesn't thaw well.

Cupcakes:

1 1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) butter, room temp

2 cups sugar

6 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup sour cream

1/2-2/3 cup smooth peanut butter

30 miniature Reese's peanut butter cups

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Sift together cocoa, flour, and baking powder, and set aside. Cream butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating until well combined. Add vanilla. Alternate in flour mixture and sour cream until fully combined, then use the mixer to beat in the peanut butter. The batter will be really, really thick.

Scoop the batter into baking tins, about 3/4 full. I used my spiked baking tins to impale the peanut butter cups so they'd sit on top of the batter, but in retrospect because of the thickness of the batter I think you can just press them gently into the top of each cup of batter. Cover the peanut butter cup with a small about of batter.

Bake for 10 minutes, turn, bake for 13 minutes. Let cool.

Makes 30.

Chocolate Whipped Cream:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 4.5 oz bar of good semi-sweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)

Coarsely chopped mini Reese's for garnish

Melt the chocolate carefully in the microwave in intervals of about 20 seconds, stirring after each time. When it is fully melted, remove and let cool.

Whip the cream until thick, being careful not to whip too much, or it will turn into butter. You can sort of tell when you're there because you will see the impression of the whisk in the cream.

Slowly stir in the melted chocolate until combined.

Top each cupcake with a generous helping of whipped cream...

...and sprinkle with chopped peanut butter cups for garnish.

I should note that I made enough whipped cream for only half the cupcakes; the other half are going in the mail to the aforementioned Liz, and since whipped cream probably won't survive the trip to Seattle I'm preparing something else for a topping. You may, therefore, need to double the recipe.

Cupcakes heavily modified from a recipe by Martha Stewart

Frosting by me.

Peanut-Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Peanut-butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

2/3 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into pieces

4 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and bp. Put butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water -- I used my stainless steel mixing bowl and a small saucepan -- and stir until the ingredients melt together. Remove from heat and let cool somewhat.

Whisk in sugar, then add eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth. Add vanilla. Add flour mixture.

Peanut Butter Filling:

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, melted

1/2 cup xxx sugar, sifted

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk ingredients together until smooth.

Put a few spoonfuls of batter in your tins, then add a spoonful of the peanut butter mixture; top with more batter to cover.

Bake for 20 minutes, then turn, and bake for another 20.

I used my silicon baking cups for this recipe, which bumped the number of cupcakes up from 12 to 16 (the cups are slightly smaller than a normal cupcake tin), but they worked pretty well. On the other hand, the filling caused these cupcakes to separate  somewhat -- the tops came off really easily, which made it difficult to take them out of the cups, meaning you more or less have to eat them with a spoon or fork out of the cup. So given that structural deficiency, I think in the future I'd tend to do them in a regular wrapper, and save the silicups for something with more overall structural integrity.

My dad, who loves chocolate-peanut butter, and was the target audience for these cupcakes (bleahhhh is my personal opinion on the subject), said they nonetheless tasted great. He described the cupcake itself as being brownie-like, and then added "you won't have any trouble getting me to eat them". So I guess we can consider these a success!

A final note: the recipe also called for 2 oz unsweet chocolate added to the semisweet chocolate in the batter, but I didn't notice and left it out. The cupcakes don't seem to have suffered any, but if you like a more chocolate flavor you may want to add this back in.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.