Gourmet Cupcakes: Reese Peanut Butter Cup Style

I was tasked with making dessert for my brother's birthday dinner and wanted to do something different. My usual fancy cake is just making a normal cake and decorating it with as many chocolate bars as possible. I still wanted to use chocolate bars, but decided to work them into some gourmet cupcakes. They were a little more work than just making a cake, but I have met some amazing baking bloggers recently and was inspired to try something new.

I did a quick Google search and found a tonne of recipes out there for Reese Peanut Butter Cupcakes. Many offered "from scratch" recipes for cake, but for better or worse I'm a cake mix kinda girl. I was able to confirm here that peanut butter cups can be baked right into a cupcake - an idea I just had to try!

Some key ingredients

I cut snack size peanut butter cups into four. Each cupcake got 3 pieces baked right in.

Simply place the peanut butter cup pieces into the batter and bake.

The cake bakes around the peanut butter pieces.

Once the cupcakes were baked and cooled, I made my first attempt at buttercream. Now that I have made it (and eaten an unhealthy amount of it) I completely understand what all the fuss is about. Simple truth: buttercream is amazing! It is probably because of the butter. I was raised in a margarine household but I am spreading my wings and hopping on the butter train. It is a tasty train.

For the frosting I used a recipe found at Allrecipes.

Cream butter and peanut butter together.

Add icing sugar by the half cup until blended in.

Giant bowl of peanut butter buttercream...Mmmmmmm....

And finally the main event: I decorated them using my new 1M star decorating tip. The internet claimed this was the perfect tip for decorating cupcakes and the internet did not lie. It was incredibly easy to use and decorate with and it made the icing look really pretty! I had a lot of fun icing them - and it was so fast and easy that I wished I had made twice as many cupcakes so I could have spent more time doing it. Loads of fun!

This is my 'decorating cupcakes' art shot.

Top with a peanut butter cup piece.

This is what they looked like cut in half.

The only complaint I had about these gourmet cupcakes is that the baked in peanut butter cup pieces sunk to the bottom of the cupcake and if the wrappers weren't carefully removed the chocolate pieces stuck to them. Not a big deal, just something I didn't expect.

Recipe Recap:

For the Cupcakes:
- 1 box chocolate cake mix
- Reese peanut butter cups (18 snack size, cut in 4)

Prepare cake mix as directed and divide equally into 24 muffin cups. Place 3 pieces of peanut butter cup gently into the batter. Bake as directed (about 20 minutes).

For the Peanut Butter Buttercream: (from Allrecipes)
- 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 3 tbs of milk (or as needed)

Cream butter and peanut butter together. Add icing sugar in half cup intervals until incorporated. Add milk by the tbs until desired consistancy is achieved.

For the Decorating:
- 1M star decorating tip (Wilton)
- Decorating bag
- Reese peanut butter cups (6 snack size, cut in 4)

Pipe buttercream onto the cupcakes. I watched this video to get the idea. Top with a piece of peanut butter cup. Enjoy!