Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes Celebration

February always comes with a lot of festivities. Birthdays (including my own), Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, Leap Year (dude, that’s an extra day in the month! What’s not to celebrate about that?!)

I decided to bust out the baking pans for some special peoples in my life. Mainly…me.

I absolutely adore Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes up to the high heavens. The best I’ve tried has been the Peanut Butter mini cupcakes at Starbucks. These babies could make me bust into tears. Luckily, the birthday boy I was making these for also shared my love for peanut butter and chocolate and cupcakes.

I started with this recipe from Beantown Baker. In the end, because of ingredients and what not, I came up with something entirely of my own doing (which is not a bad thing at all).

A trip to Trader Joe’s brought back the necessary supplies (except for confectioner’s sugar. Did you know Trader Joe’s only sells that during the holiday season? If February isn’t the holiday season, I don’t know what is!)

A major reason I wanted to bake was because I wanted to use these bad boys my dear friend Jessica got me for Christmas.

{Gorgeous Anthropologie mixing cups }

The cake mix was mished and mashed and poured into cupcake and cake pans.

Ingredients for frosting…

Kathleen’s Peanut Butter Icing 
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used crunchy ’cause I can)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream

Place the confectioners’ sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. 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.

{ May I borrow a cup of sugar? }The secret to these cupcakes come from the center, which I scooped out and filled with chocolate ganache and mini peanut butter cups.

Chocolate Ganache
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream

In saucepan bring whipping cream to boil over high heat. Pour hot whipping cream over chocolate and stir until chocolate melted.

After, I topped with the peanut butter frosting and even more mini peanut butter cups!

These things were so freaking good I gained 10 pounds after eating it 5 days in a row.

Ok, maybe not, maybe it just feelslike 10 pounds.

What’s your favorite cupcake flavor? Maybe I’ll try baking it next time!