Description

This small batch chocolate peanut butter cupcake recipe makes just 6 perfectly moist and tender chocolate cupcakes made entirely without eggs and dairy and stuffed with peanut butter! Topped with a silky dairy free peanut butter cream cheese frosting, you won’t believe these are vegan!

Ingredients

Scale

Chocolate cupcake base:

1/3 cup (90 mL) vegan buttermilk, room temperature
2/3 cups (80 g) all purpose flour or gluten free 1:1 baking flour, sifted
1/4 cup (25 g) dutch process cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp sea salt
1/3 cups (75 g) granulated sugar
1/8 cup (30 g) brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup (55 g) neutral oil
1 tbsp (18 g) dairy free yogurt, room temperature
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup (60 mL) hot water + 1 tsp dissolvable espresso powder

Peanut butter filling:

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Peanut butter ‘cream cheese’ frosting:

1 cup (226 g) vegan butter, room temperature
1/2 cup (113 g) vegan cream cheese, cold
1/2 cup (113 g) creamy peanut butter
4 cups (560 g) powdered sugar, sifted

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Instructions

Please read through all instructions. Measure out all ingredients before beginning.
Prep: Preheat the oven to 350F and line a cupcake tin with liners. Make sure for the vegan buttermilk, the dairy-free milk and lemon juice/ACV are mixed together and set aside to curdle.
Prepare the dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and sea salt. Set aside.
Make the chocolate cupcakes batter: In a large bowl with a hand mixer or whisk, mix together the neutral oil, sugar, brown sugar, dairy free yogurt, and vanilla until combined. Carefully add in about half of the dry mixture to the wet ingredients and half of the vegan buttermilk. Mix again lightly until almost all of the dry ingredients are incorporated, then add in the remaining dry mixture, vegan buttermilk and coffee, being careful not to over mix the batter.
Bake the cupcakes: Pour the batter into the cupcake liners, filling the liners just over 3/4 of the way full. You should get 6 cupcakes. Place the cupcakes into the over and bake for 20 minutes, or until the toothpick comes out clean.
Cool: Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the cupcake tin. After 10 minutes, transfer the cupcakes to the cooling rack until they are fully cooled. Once the cupcakes are fully cooled, use a cupcake corer or with a spoon, remove the center/core of each cupcake. You can save the extra pieces for cake truffles!
Fill the cupcakes: Once the cupcakes are cored, spoon about 1-2 teaspoons peanut butter into each cupcake.
Make the peanut butter frosting: use a hand mixer in a large bowl to cream the vegan butter and cream cheese until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Then add in the peanut butter, and mix again until the peanut butter is incorporated. Then sift in the powdered sugar in 1 cup increments, continuing to cream the frosting. The frosting should be fluffy. The important thing here is to make sure it’s still cold so that it pipes well.
Pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes: Fill a piping bag with a tip and pipe the vegan buttercream frosting onto the cupcakes. Top with homemade vegan peanut butter cups or store bought vegan peanut butter cups. Serve and enjoy!
Storage: store any leftover cupcakes in an airtight container and in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Notes

Gluten free: use Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Baking Flour for completely gluten free peanut butter chocolate cupcakes.

Refined sugar free: you can use coconut sugar for the entirety of this recipe, including the frosting. Be sure to process the coconut sugar through the food processor when using in the buttercream section. This will simulate powdered sugar.