chocolate cupcake w/ peanut butter frosting and nutella ganache*

Say that fast 10 times! These cupcakes are nothing short of AMAZING. They are melt in your mouth peanut butter chocolate gooey goodness! We made these for parent conference this last weekend and they were a hit. I had a slight meltdown because the frosting started falling off some of the cupcakes, but with some quick thinking I stuck them in the freezer and they were good as new.

I was worried the recipe for the frosting didn't make enough, so I added some whipped topping to the frosting and it still tasted so yummy! The frosting alone I could literally eat for a week straight. This is my new favorite frosting recipe. I don't know what it is, but add flour and granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar to your frosting and you will have the lightest, fluffiest, most delicious frosting which strongly resembles whipped cream. There is a frosting that we have made before that said that after you cook your flour and milk to put it through a sifter. This recipe did not say to do that and it turned out just as good, maybe even better, than the sifted recipe. So you can skip that annoying step and get just as good results! Sign me up!

Also, the nutella ganache didn't thicken up like I thought it would, so I added some chocolate chips and covered it for 5 minutes while the nutella and cream was still hot, then uncovered and stirred. That thickened it up nicely so that I could coat my cupcakes more easily and not so runny and messy. If yours thickens up like a normal ganache, then don't fret about the chocolate chips.

Chocolate Cupcake w/ Peanut Butter Frosting and Nutella Ganache
from Made Famous By

Chocolate Cupcakes
**This recipe will also make an amazing cake**

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, eggs, vanilla and water. Beat for about two minutes on medium speed until well combined.

3. Using a large cookie scoop, distribute the batter between 24 muffin wells.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until the tops of the cakes spring back when lightly touched. . Allow cupcakes to cool inside muffin tins for about 10 minutes.

5. Remove cupcakes from muffin tins and allow to fully cool on a wire rack. Once cupcakes are cool, take a little of the middle out to prepare them for the stuffing. 

Assemble them like this: Fill them with the peanut butter frosting with Reeses, put a layer of Nutella Ganache on the top of the cupcake (stay away from the edges), frost the cupcakes with the peanut butter frosting, drizzle with nutella ganache, then cut a reeses in half (I did fourths) to add it to the top.

Peanut Butter Frosting
*Adapted from the best frosting EVER!*

5 Tablespoons Flour
1 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Butter
1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

1/4 C Peanut Butter

6 Reeses Peanut Butter cups (chopped)

Directions

In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If I’m in a hurry, I place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

** Reserve a cup of the frosting when you are done making it and add the chopped up Reese's Peanut Butter cups to it. Use this mixture to put in the hole you made in the cupcakes then frost the cup cakes with the regular frosting.

Nutella Ganache

2 C Nutella
2 C Heavy Cream

Put the Nutella and heavy cream in a bowl and heat it in the microwave for 1 minute. Take it out and stir it. If it is not melted enough heat it for another minute.

-alyssa*