Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes are so moist, decadent, and have the perfect balance of flavors!

If you love cupcakes like we do, don't miss our full collection for favorite cupcake recipes! Today's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes are sure to find a place at the top of your list.

Rich chocolate cupcakes are filled and swirled with creamy peanut butter buttercream. It is the perfect combination.

Table of Contents

How to Make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

This versatile scratch chocolate cupcake recipe is one of our favorites! You can also use it for layer cakes and can easily change up your fillings and frosting flavors for more delicious options.

You can find the full, printable recipe card further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps!

First, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Add cupcake liners to a cupcake pan. (This recipe makes 36 cupcakes).

In a separate bowl, add the flour, sifted cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk to blend and set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, mix the softened butter on medium speed until light and creamy. (Use paddle attachment if using a stand mixer). Add the vegetable oil and vanilla. Gradually add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy, approximately 4 to 5 minutes.

Next, add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg until the yellow of the yolk is blended. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.

Mixing on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk to the sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. (3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 additions of milk). Mix just until blended.

Add the cup of hot coffee at this time and mix to blend. The batter will be very thin. Don't worry this is how it should be. This recipe makes 9 cups of batter (enough for 36 cupcakes)

Line the cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Scoop about ¼ cup batter into each cupcake liner. Bake at 350℉ for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted and removed with no crumbs or just a few crumbs attached (or when the centers spring back when lightly touched).

Chocolate Cupcake Batter in liners of cake pan

Pop the cupcakes out of the pan soon after removing from oven. (We do this within just a few minutes of removing).

Freshly baked chocolate cupcakes on wire rack

Peanut Butter Buttercream

We used a creamy, delicious peanut butter buttercream for our filling and frosting! This amazing recipe has been our go-to for peanut butter frosting for years.

It is so easy to make- a simple combination of softened butter, creamy peanut butter, confectioners sugar, a splash of milk, and a bit of vanilla extract.

How to Add Filling to Cupcakes

Filling the cupcakes is an optional step, but we love this peanut butter frosting so much that we wanted to add just a little bit more to each cupcake!

If you are new to adding filling to cupcakes, it is so simple!

First, fill a disposable piping bag with peanut butter frosting and snip the tip away, creating a smallish hole.

Insert the filled piping bag halfway into the top of your cooled cupcake and squeeze the bag for a few seconds.

Filling chocolate cupcakes with piping bag of peanut butter frosting

Helpful Tip: If you have a spare cupcake, you can to a test run for the filling to get a feel for how much frosting you are putting into each cupcake. Split it in half, and see how much filling is inside.

Filled Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake, sliced in half

If you'd like more filling, just squeeze the bag a second longer next time. (You can also do a quick trial run on a plate. As you squeeze the piping bag, count how many seconds it takes to get the desired amount of filling).

Frosting and Decorating

We added simple swirls of peanut butter frosting to our filled, cooled chocolate cupcakes using a large 1M star piping tip.

Holding the piping bag vertically over your cupcake, start in the center and spiral outward to cover top of the cupcake.

Piping swirls of frosting onto chocolate cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes swirled with Peanut Butter Buttercream on a white platter

We love an easy cupcake topper! Today, we used Reese's Thins, sliced in quarters.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Thins, sliced in quarters to use a cupcake toppers

Look how pretty! These are sure to make any special occasion even better ;0)

Chocolate cupcakes with swirls of peanut butter frosting on top.

Recipe FAQs

These are fine to leave out at room temperature for 1-2 days, preferably in an airtight container or under a cake dome.

After that, I would move to the refrigerator. However, if you do refrigerate these cupcakes, allow them to warm closer to room temperature (1-2 hours) before serving. This will allow the cake and frosting plenty of time to warm and soften.

Yes, just as with most of our cakes (from lemon cupcakes to almond cake, caramel cupcakes, and more), these will freeze perfectly.

After baking and cooling, line the chocolate cupcakes in rows on a sheet cake board (or something similar). Then wrap over the tops of the cupcakes in a sheet or two of plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil.

Place in the tightly wrapped cupcakes in the freezer for up to three months!

To thaw, move the tray/board of cupcakes to the kitchen counter and loosen or remove the foil once condensation no longer forms on the outside (after about 15-20 minutes.) Thaw to desired amount before decorating.

In addition to today's easy peanut butter buttercream, we also love Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting! This is a creamy and flavorful frosting but it does need to be refrigerated.

We prefer to use creamy peanut butter brands like Jif, etc. Some of the "all natural" versions have a much wetter consistency that would change the consistency of the frosting.

More Cakes with Peanut Butter

Keep these other recipes in mind for the peanut butter lovers in your life! They are sure to please. You can find the full listing of our favorite recipes in our Cakes and Cupcakes Section!

Some of our most popular are Peanut Butter Cupcakes from Cake Mix, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pound Cake, a delicious Peanut Butter Chocolate Marble Cake from cake mix, and an easy Peanut Butter Cake from a mix.

Closeup of Unwrapped, Frosted Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcake.

Thanks so much for stopping by. We hope that you enjoy the recipe! Don't miss our full collection of Cake Recipes which includes cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes!

If you are interested in cake decorating, we have hundreds of cake tutorials to share with you! You'll learn everything from how to frost a cake, elegant cake designs, birthday cake ideas, and so many more!

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