indulgent chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and peanut butter frosting

My current mission is to bake a new cupcake recipe every week. I plan to spread the cupcake love with my friends and family. I took these very naughty but very nice cupcakes to work and they helped to keep us going through a long night shift. Now, I have to confess that I might have the sweetest tooth in the world. Have you ever heard people say "its far too sweet" or "its so sweet I can only manage a bite".... well that is not me!! I do not understand the term "too sweet"! I have to say though this cupcake has the potential to be a very sweet treat, but I find that the peanut butter gives it the savory edge and prevents it being the kind of sickly sweet that these crazy people complain about. The peanut butter gives the frosting a lovely creamy, sticky texture. these might just be my favourite cupcakes so far...

The sponge:


This is a very simple, one bowl sponge recipe from the trusty Delia Smith complete cookery course book. I have adapted the recipe by adding an extra egg and a teaspoon or oil or warm water to make it a little more moist. I also added an extra table spoon of coco powder because like I said, Sweet tooth! Here is the original recipe, feel free to tweak it at your will:

4oz (110g) self-raising flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
4oz (110g) butter
4oz (110g) caster sugar
2 (or 3) large eggs
1 (or 2) tablespoons of coco powder

And now follow the simplest baking instructions in the world... sift the flour into a bowl and add all the other ingredients. Mix well for several minutes. The mixture should fall easily from a spoon when tapped against the bowl. If the mixture is too thick this is when you can add the teaspoon of warm water until you are happy with the constancy. Fill your cupcake cases 1/2 - 2/3 full; note if you put more than this in each case they will spill out everywhere and you wont be able to ice them... believe me, I have done it!! Bake on gas mark 3 (170 degrees) for 20 minutes or until a knife inserted into the cupcake comes out clean. The cakes should rise so that thy come just over the top of the case...

Now for the best part of the cupcake process... the icing! I have used two types of frosting in this recipe, chocolate and peanut butter.

Chocolate butter cream Frosting:
50g butter softened
50g icing sugar
1-2 tablespoons of coco powder
1 tablespoon of full fat cream cheese

Cream the butter and sugar and coco powder together.  Slowly add the cream cheese and mix again. If the icing needs to be thicker you can add a tablespoon of icing sugar at a time until you reach the desired consistency. If it is too thick add a tablespoon of milk, or a tablespoon of cream cheese.

Peanut butter frosting: 
50g butter softened
50g icing sugar
1 table spoon of peanut butter
2 tablespoons of cream cheese

Cream the butter and sugar together and then mix in the peanut butter. Add in the cream cheese slowly. Due to the consistency of peanut butter this icing tends to be thicker than the chocolate butter cream. When piping two icings together it helps for both icings to be of the same consistency so you will need to add milk or cream cheese until this frosting is thin enough to pipe.  when adding the icing to the piping bag place the chocolate down one side and the peanut butter down the other, this means that when you pipe you will get a beautiful combination of the two icings.

enjoy xxx