Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I have 10 weeks left before my final deadlines for my degree, hence why the blog has taken a backseat lately. I've even taken photos for blog posts but just not had chance to write them up! But I've given myself the day off from studies today and took the opportunity to do some therapeutic baking.

I've been perfecting this recipe for a little while now, the frosting has always been a perfect peanutty soft whippyness but the sponge has sometimes been a little bit dry. This time I used a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery which has quite a bit of milk in it and it's much more moist. Perfection!

 Recipe

Ingredients 

For the Cupcakes (recipe taken from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1 1/2tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
120ml whole milk
1 egg
1/4tsp vanilla extract

For the Frosting

125g butter, at room temperature
125g peanut butter (I used a combination of smooth and crunchy)
250g icing sugar, sifted
drop of vanilla extract
whole milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 170c or Gasmark 3

Put the flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in your mixer and beat on slow speed until everything is combined.

Whisk the milk, egg and vanilla extract together in a jug and add half to the flour mixture, mixing until smooth. Add the other half and mix again but don't over mix.

Spoon the mixture into paper cases and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the sponge bounces back.

Meanwhile to make the frosting, cream the butter and peanut butter together with the vanilla extract. Add the sifted icing sugar (to avoids lumps) and mix until smooth, adding milk to reach the desired consistency (you don't want it too runny if you're going to pipe it).

When they are cooled, spread or pipe the frosting onto the cakes.

Let me know if you try it and enjoy your Sunday.