Chocolate and Peanut Butter

My son's 15th birthday was last month. Last year, I made him a guitar cake ... so I asked him what he wanted this year. Instead of cake, he said he wanted peanut butter filled chocolate cupcakes ... AND ... his favorite chocolate fudge frosting. He truly is my boy ... I LOVE chocolate and peanut butter too.

When I make chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes, I usually make peanut butter buttercream and fill and top a chocolate cupcake with it. But he specifically asked for the chocolate fudge buttercream and I didn't want to make two kinds of frosting. So I decided to go a different route with the filling. I found a recipe for a peanut butter filling that went into the cupcake before baking.

I got the recipe for the filling from Lizzy at Your Cup of Cake. The recipe is very simple.

Peanut Butter Filling
6 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons milk

Just cream all of the ingredients until well combined and set aside until ready to use.

So here's what I did ...

I started by making my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe and then filled each of the baking cups about half full. I then placed a dollop of the filling in each cup.

To make sure nothing spilled over the top, I used a spoon to push the filling down into the batter. I then baked at 350 for 19 minutes and then placed them on a wire rack to cool.

While they cooled I made Collin's favorite chocolate fudge frosting. I had also bought a package of regular sized peanut butter cups. I took this time to unwrap each of them and cup them in half with a sharp knife.

When everything was cooled and ready to go, I loaded up my piping bag with frosting and used a large star tip to make a pretty swirl on top. I then placed a peanut butter cup half on each one.

After dinner, we sang to the boy and each had a cupcake. I had made so many of them that we had cupcakes for days to come as well. Collin was very pleased.