Chocolate & Peanut Butter Cupcakes

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

To the delight of gourmets, of course.

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

You just have to tell yourself that it's 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 bowl, mix 120g of flour, 200g of caster sugar, 50g of unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp of baking soda and 1 pinch of salt.

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

- Finally add 125ml of hot water.

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

- Place paper cases in a muffin pan.

- Fill the pastry cases 2/3 full. (no more otherwise beware of overflows!).

- Bake for about 20 minutes. Leave to cool on a rack.

• Swiss meringue peanut butter frosting

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

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

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

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

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

(if the consistency seems too grainy, don't panic, just keep whisking and it will get better!)

- Finish by adding 3 tbsp of peanut butter, whisk one last time, and the frosting 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)