Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cupcakes

It's official, winter is here, and our need for "comfort food" is increasingly felt ...

To the delight of gourmets, of course.

So, for this recipe, no need to have fun counting calories, it would hurt us!

You just have to tell yourself that it is deliciously GOOD and that's it :-)

The starting point for these cupcakes is a very soft, cocoa-flavored cake base.

For the topping, a small jar of peanut butter in stock + a desire to try Swiss meringue (a 1st!) = Peanut butter icing with Swiss meringue!

Recipe for 12 cupcakes:

• Chocolate cake base

- Preheat the oven to 180 °.

- In a container, mix 120g of flour, 200g of caster sugar, 50g of unsweetened cocoa powder, 1tsp of baking powder, 1ts of baking soda and 1 pinch of salt.

- Then add 1 whole egg, 60ml of oil, 125ml of whole milk, then finish with 1tsp of liquid vanilla extract.

- Finally add 125ml of hot water.

(don't worry if the dough is very runny, it's normal)

- Put paper boxes in a muffin tin.

- Fill the boxes with the dough to 2/3 of their height (no more otherwise beware of overflows!).

- Cook for about 20 minutes. Let cool on rack.

• Swiss meringue peanut butter frosting

{new icing for me, as I told you above, which requires a little technique, but nothing insurmountable, and the taste result is very creamy, I like it a lot! A non-cloying buttercream, yes if it exists!}

- In a glass container placed over a double boiler, manually whisk 3 egg whites with 80g caster sugar and 1 pinch of salt.

- Remove the container when the egg whites have reached a temperature of 60 ° C.

- Continue to beat with a mixer until the container is completely cold (about 8 minutes).

- At this stage, add 140g of butter, diced and at room temperature, one by one, continuing to whisk, at maximum speed.

(if the consistency seems too grainy to you, don't panic, we continue to whip and it gets better!)

- Finish by adding 3tbsp peanut butter, whisk one last time, and the icing is ready to use.

- Then garnish the cupcakes with this mixture. You can, like me, top them with a "chouchou" (caramelized peanut), for fun!

If you want to keep these cupcakes in the refrigerator (to be avoided anyway, I prefer to leave them at room temperature), you have to remember to take them out 15 minutes before tasting otherwise the icing will be too hard, as if frozen.

 [ Equipment used ]

2D WILTON socket

Piping bags 40cm (pack of 100)