I’ve been trying to get my brain around the idea of peanut butter and jelly cupcakes for awhile now. I’ve agonized over the hows and whys in my mind–where the jelly would go, what kind of jelly I would use, what flavor of cupcakes, yada yada yada. And then, out of nowhere as I was lying in bed awake and hungry, the simple solution came to me: why use jelly when you can use chocolate? I think that rule can pretty much be applied to all areas of life. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked it’s taken me this long to come up with this one–it’s not like no one’s ever put peanut butter and chocolate together. Enter Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes.
I really am not much of a semi-homemade kind of girl–I really do make almost everything from scratch. But when it comes to cupcakes, doctored-up cake mix cupcakes really are my favorite way to go. They’re quick, easy, delicious, and fail-proof, regardless of elevation, humidity, or political affiliation. My only snobbery when it comes to doctoring up cake mixes is that I will only use Duncan Hines cake mixes (and they don’t even pay me to say that…in fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never had a conversation with anyone affiliated with Duncan Hines). You’ll need a white or yellow Duncan Hines cake mix as well as canola oil, 3 eggs, sour cream, vanilla, small Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and peanut butter. 
Preheat your oven to 350 and line 2 12-opening muffin tins with cupcake liners. Set aside.
Combine all the ingredients except the peanut butter cups in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium-low for 30 seconds, scraping the bottom and sides often, then beat on high for 3 minutes.
Fill each cupcake liner about 1/3 full with cupcake batter. Top with an unwrapped mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, 
and then top the Peanut Butter Cups with the remaining batter. You want to make sure that the candy is covered and the liner is about 3/4 full.
Bake the cupcakes in the preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until they are golden on top.
Remove them from the oven and let them cool completely.
While the cupcakes are cooling, you’ll want to get the frostings ready. Yep, that would be “frostings.” Plural. It’s hot and Friday and the end of summer and your kids are fighting–I promise, you need frostings. For these cupcakes, I used the peanut butter frosting from these cookies and then the chocolate frosting from the infamous Tim Riggins Brownies.
Why that chocolate frosting, you ask? Mostly because between that frosting, this one, and this one, Mr. Riggins’ frosting is the quickest, easiest, and I always have those ingredients. Plus, the Old-Fashioned Chocolate Frosting is awesome, but it totally deserves to be the star of its own show rather than in an ensemble production, you know?
When the cupcakes have cooled completely, use this tutorial to frost your cupcakes. 
Squeeze a dollop of remaining frosting onto your finger, lick it, and ponder the wonder of the forthcoming school year, then pour a few glasses of milk and watch your kids ponder the wonder of you and your awesome cupcakes.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes
Description
Along with a great cupcake base, the unique frosting combination on top really makes these shine!
Ingredients
For the Cupcakes
- 1 Duncan Hines yellow or white cake mix
- 1 cup sour cream (full-fat or light, but not fat-free)
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 24 unwrapped mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
For the Chocolate Frosting
- 1/4 cup melted butter (real butter, not margarine)
- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 pound powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons evaporated milk
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Peanut Butter Frosting
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/4 cup real butter, softened
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2–3 tablespoons (or more) of milk (you can use some of the leftover evaporated milk; it’s awesome in this frosting)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 12-cup muffin tins with cupcake liners and set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine all the cupcake ingredients except for the peanut butter cups with an electric mixer on medium-low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the bowl frequently. Turn the speed to high and beat for another 3 minutes.
- Fill each muffin cup about 1/2 full with batter. Top with an unwrapped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup , then fill the muffin cups with the remaining batter. Make sure the Peanut Butter Cups are covered and the cups are about 3/4 full. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until the tops are golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
- While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the frostings. For both frostings, just combine all the ingredients for each one and whip until light and fluffy, adding additional milk as needed. Frost the cupcakes with the swirled frosting in tutorial linked to below.
Use this tutorial to frost your cupcakes!
Questions & Reviews
How do you store these? I can’t wait to try them.
Made these gluten free last night! Oh man were they delish!!! I used a chocolate Pamela’s cake mix (got it at Walmart) and follwed the instructions + 1 cup of water. Even the non gluten free people in the house couldn’t get enough 🙂 Thanks!
I recently had a PB&J cupcake at a bakery. It was SO GOOD! It was a lightly flavored PB vanilla cupcake (like these) and it had strawberry jelly in the middle. PB frosting on top with another dollop of strawberry jelly and a nutter butter cookie to top it all off. So I think this recipe would be adaptable for the PBJ cupcake too! Thanks for the recipe – we can’t get enough PB and chocolate around here!
This looks so good however I would have to leave out the sour cream since I’m allergic to sour cream.
Debby–you can always use plain yogurt, too! 🙂
My husband and I made these yesterday. They are so delicious! However, I had to put a disclaimer on mine that they tasted better than they looked. I tried to frost them using the tutorial but with the cheap way of using sandwich bags and a gallon bag. It didn’t work the greatest unfortunately. I just might have to get my own frosting bags. Any suggestions?
I made these the other day and they were fantastic, however I had issues with the chocolate frosting- it was pretty runny so i ended up just using the peanut butter frosting. any suggestions for next time? thanks!
Laura, next time just add a little more powdered sugar until it reaches a good consistency.
thanks! i wasnt for sure if it would make it too sweet if i kept dumping in more sugar 🙂
Even my son the teenage cook at our house was impressed 🙂
I saw the blog for these, and made them the next day! They were a huge hit with everyone that tried them. However, I was hoping that my frostings would have been fluffier, I may have done something wrong. I think that my butter may have been too hot when I added it to the chocolate frosting??? It looked almost like a thick ganache.I also sifted my powdered sugar onto my food scale to reach half a pound. There wasn’t nearly as much as there was peanut butter frosting, the peanut butter frosting was fluffier, but was really glossy, I live in the South so I wonder if the humidity affected it? I like to follow a recipe exactly the first time, or two, and I almost always give a recipe a second (or third) chance. Practice makes perfect, right? 😉 I didn’t have time to swirl the frostings like I would have liked to, but I spread the peanut butter on the cupcakes, and dolloped the chocolate on top. I love your cookbook and blog, I love to cook anyway but with a new baby it was hard to get the motiviation, well, you’ve provided it! I have tried more of the recipes from your cookbook than from any other cookbook that I have so far, I have been inspired to grill more! Thank you, it’s great to see how much you love cooking. I want to start canning now!
As soon as I saw the pictures, I started thinking of excuses to bake these. I’ll be trying them out and bringing them to work next week. Thanks!!
I made these today! I had two straight out of the oven, I couldn’t help myself and they were SO GOOD!!! Didn’t even need frosting.
thank you for adding the cut in half cupcake picture…i recommended this recipe to my sister in law for a potluck, and told her that kind of picture was missing…looks delicious!
P.S. I made your lemon cupcakes today!!!!! LOVE them. That’s my second time making them.
These look GREAT!
The day before the wedding can be so hectic. Do you think I can make these and your lemon cupcakes ahead and freeze them for a week?
You can definitely make and freeze the cupcake part, just wait to frost them.
I’m glad to see I’m not the only Duncan Hines ‘snob’ around. This recipe looks yummy! I just need an occasion to have plenty of people to share them with!
Those look awesome. Here is a link to a pbj oatmeal muffin, maybe this will help in your idea.
http://www.theungourmet.com/2010/02/peanut-butter-and-jelly-oatmeal-muffins.html
Oh my word! YUM!! You have amazing ideas, Kate! Seriously. ;P Can’t wait to try these! My husband and I are both die hard fans of chocolate and peanut butter so these are so totally up our alley! :))
Why oh why must I have a child with a severe peanut allergy??? I love peanut butter and I love chocolate! This might just be the saddest part of my day!!
Well first these look just to die for – I didn’t really need another project this weekend but I guess I have one!
On another note, have you ever wanted to take Tim Riggins and tidy him up just a wee bit and maybe put him in a spanky white navy uniform – you know just for something different or maybe for Sunday dinner? I give you: Battleship
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDMXkPfxjOc
Will I be able to swirl store bought frostings like you’ve done with the homemade ones?
I dreamt about making these cupcakes for Activity Days, but I had a hard time finding the ingredients, for some reason. 🙁 Maybe that’s because mt son can’t eat gluten or dairy.
Annaliese,
I am gluten intolerant, lactose intolerant, and cant have chocolate. I have gluten free white cake mix (found at the store), I cant do the candy center but I can do the PB so I think Im going to use Skippy’s honey nut PB (gluten and dairy free) to flavor the frosting, and a friend told me that Carob kinda tastes like chocolate, so I am going to try some carob in the cake. I believe there is some sourcream/ yogurt that is lactose free check in the organic/health food section of your local grocery store? If I cant find some Im either going to just follow package directions for the gluten free cake mix OR just use greek yogurt and take a chewable lactaid pill lol
To be honest i just want to make a big batch of the 2 frostings and alternately shovel them into my mouth. The cupcakes look darn good too of course! How could they not when spiked with such gorgeous flavours 🙂 lovely!
Oh my, a friend posted a link to this on Facebook and now I’ve fallen helplessly in love with you. (don’t tell my husband….) The heck with it, I’m making these for my own birthday in a couple weeks!
I really want to make these, but our 6 year old has a nut allergy (sigh). Do you think you could come up with a variation on these but use rolos and other caramel stuff? Something to think about. By the way I heart your cookbook!
My daughter’s birthday is Tuesday and she will be at her job delivering babies then. I knew I was going to make my -very delicious- Strawberry margharita cupcakes to take up to her and her co-workers, but will also be bringing these scrumptious sounding cupcakes too! Thanks
Will you be my mom??? I mean seriously, two kinds of cupcakes delivered to her at work? Lucky!!!
Oh wow…i’m speechless 😛 These look amazingly yummy! Peanut Butter Heaven.
What if you stirred in a bag of the pbc’s that are the baking size into the batter and let them fall where they may within the cupcake? The chocolate to pb ratio is a little off, but still might be acceptable.
They might sink to the bottom of the cupcake, but I bet they’d still be good 🙂
I’ll try it and let you know!
It’s funny to me that you need to specify that the pbc’s be unwrapped!
What is the measurements for half pound confectioner sugar? Cup size I mean.
Sunny
Sunny, should be about 2 cups worth.
I had to unbutton my jeans after just reading this post. True story.