These Peanut Butter Cupcakes are delicious. They are easy to make and are always a crowd pleaser. You can top them with a chocolate or peanut butter icing. This time I went for a rich chocolate icing and topped with Peanut Butter Kit Kats.

I have added an extra peanut butter surprise to these cupcakes by piping smooth peanut butter into the centre. If you do this why they are still warm, the peanut butter spreads into the cupcakes and it is so good. If you prefer things sweeter, stir in a teaspoon of icing sugar to the peanut butter before you pipe it in. 

If you don’t need 12 cupcakes, make them all and ice only as many as you need. The leftover cupcakes can be left in the freezer and microwaved when you want a sweet treat. The peanut butter turns runny leaving you with a delicious melt in the middle mini cake!

Makes 12 cupcakes

🛒 Ingredients 🛒 

For the cupcakes:

▪️125g butter

▪️50g smooth peanut butter

▪️175g caster sugar

▪️3 eggs

▪️175g self raising flour

▪️1 tsp baking powder

▪️2 tsp vanilla extract

To fill the cupcakes:

▪️50g smooth peanut butter

For the icing:

▪️175g unsalted butter

▪️350g icing sugar

▪️30g cocoa powder

▪️70g melted dark chocolate

▪️1 tsp vanilla extract

▪️2 tbsp milk

To decorate:

▪️Peanut Butter Cupcakes KitKats

👩‍🍳 Method 👩‍🍳 

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare your cupcake cases on a tray.
2. In a bowl cream together the butter, peanut butter and the sugar until pale. 
3. Add in one egg at a time and make sure you mix until it is fully combined before adding the next one. Then mix in the vanilla extract.
4. Next, sieve in the flour and baking powder and fold through until completely mixed in.
5. Spoon the cake batter into your prepared cases.
6. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Remove from the oven and using the remaining peanut butter, add it to a piping bag and pipe peanut butter into the centre of the cupcake. Leave them to cool fully on a wire rack.  
8. To make the icing, beat the butter and vanilla in a bowl until it is pale. 
9. Add the icing sugar and cocoa powder to the butter in stages, whisking in each addition fully. Once you have added all of the icing sugar, beat in the melted dark chocolate.
10. Use the milk to get it to your desired consistency, you may not need all of the milk or any of it. The important thing is that you want to be able to pipe your buttercream so use the milk to loosen it up.
11. Pipe the buttercream onto your cupcakes and top with Peanut Butter Kit Kats.