Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Icing

As promised, here is another adapted recipe from the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook. I had actually made this earlier, but the cupcakes were all eaten up before I could make the icing. Whoopsie. So here's another try, this time for a family event - hence the sprinklables, to make it look even prettier, haha. Here we go!


What you need:
Cupcakes:
6 tablespoons salted butter
150g semisweet chocolate or darker, chopped
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup plain flour

Icing:
3/4 cup icing sugar
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup salted butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup heavy cream

What you do:

1. For the cupcakes:  Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a mini-muffin tray with paper cups, or grease.
2. Combine the butter and chocolate in a microwaveable bowl and microwave on low, stirring occasionally, until it is just melted.
3. Stir in the sugars. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one. Stir in the vanilla, then the flour.
4. Fill the muffin cups with the mixture.
5. Bake the cupcakes for 10 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through, or until a toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs attached (like a brownie). Repeat with the remaining mixture. Leave to cool completely before icing them. (If you wish to make normal-sized cupcakes, bake for 20-25 minutes)
6. For the icing:  Place all the ingredients for the icing except for the cream in a small bowl. With an electric mixer, beat the ingredients until they are creamy.
7. Add in the cream and beat the mixture until it is soft and creamy.
8. Spread or pipe the icing on top of the cupcakes and top with chopped peanuts (for adults) or sprinkles (for kids) if desired. We had to pat the sprinkles on to get them to stick, and just decided to dip the whole thing in a bowl filled with sprinkles. That was faster and much more colourful. =D

This was such a gorgeous recipe. So easy to make and so tasty! The cupcake batter was very soft, almost like brownie batter. The resulting cupcakes were also like brownies, very fudgey and chocolatey. Yet, despite the fudginess, it was somehow light and airy as well. Soooo delicious! We got 55 mini cupcakes out of this, just so you know. A airy yet fudgey brownie cupcake. Just perfect. =)

The peanut butter icing wasn't that much harder to do, though you do need an electric mixer. Beating it by hand would be too difficult, as the peanut butter is quite stiff. What results is also delicious - tastes like peanut butter, yet is creamier and not quite as rich. Its also not as sweet as I expected, despite the sugar in there. It was slightly salty, slightly sweet quite peanut-ty tasting icing. Very nice, if you like peanut butter.

I have to admit, I am a recent fan of peanut butter. I don't really eat it with bread and such, but I do like it in biscuits and, as it turns out, with chocolate! ;) Mind you, while the peanut butter icing had its fans, the children generation were not quite as enamored of it. Turns out that not a lot of them actually liked peanut butter. Whoops! Guess it was a mistake to bring these to a family event then, haha. But I think most of the adults liked it. By the end of the night, they were all finished though, and that's all that matters. The chocolate cupcake part remained very popular though.

Another problem some people had with this though, was that the peanut butter completely overpowered the chocolate. I do admit that this is true. One way you could circumvent this would be either by baking big cupcakes (and hence have a bigger cupcake to icing ratio) or just use a smear of icing on top of the cupcakes, instead of piping it on like we did. I think we might try that next time. In any case, I think this recipe is definitely going on the recommended list. Just make sure the people you make it for like peanut butter! =P

Quote of the day: It's like peanut butter and chocolate. Each is great, but they're better together.