Simple Suburbia: Chocolate + Peanut Butter

Does anyone not like that combination?!

I pinned these Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Filling a LONG time ago. Every time I was browsing my pins for desserts, I scrolled past these for some reason. I finally decided to make them after my husband requested some new delicious cupcakes.

What You Need

Cupcakes:

2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
5 1/3 ounces unsalted butter (10 2/3 Tbs)
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 cup milk

Filling:

1 cup creamy peanut butter (don’t use natural — go with Skippy)
3 Tbs. unsalted butter
2/3 cup confectioners sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Ganache:

3 Tbs. cocoa
2 Tbs. melted unsalted butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
3 Tbs. hot water

The Cupcakes

Line your cupcake pans with liners lightly coated with cooking spray. The original recipe said it would make about 24, but I was able to make 28-30 (I can't remember the exact number).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar, and vanilla until fluffy. Slowly add the eggs one at a time (or if you're like me, slowly pour in your egg beaters).
On the lowest speed, add in your dry ingredients and alternate with milk. Do NOT overbeat!
Spoon batter into prepped cupcake pans, filling each mold about 2/3 full.
Bake for 25 minutes or until tops spring back when gently pressed.

The Filling

In a small bowl, beat together all ingredients until combined.
Prep a pastry bag with a wide tip and fill with your peanut butter mixture.
Take an apple corer and firmly press it into the center of each cupcake. It will leave a deep hole down the middle. Place the tip of your pastry bag into the hole and squeeze to fill each cupcake. It may overflow onto the top of the cupcake a little...that's ok!
Note: The only apple corer I own also cuts the apple for you. Obviously this was not going to work for this recipe! I didn't think of this until it was too late so I had to find something else in my kitchen. I ended up using our knife sharpener thing. It was probably a little too narrow, but it worked alright. I added apple corer to my Christmas list. ;)

The Ganache

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl with a spoon. Drizzle over cupcakes.
Note: When I made this ganache, it was VERY thin. As in it just soaked right into the cupcakes or dripped off the side. I added two heaping spoonfuls of Cool Whip (left over from my trifle recipe) and it thickened up just enough!

Here is the final product. I had a lot of leftover filling (maybe because we used a knife sharpener instead of an apple corer) so Nick insisted we not let that go to waste. We used it as an extra topping on some of the cupcakes!