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Peanut Butter Chocolate Owl Cupcakes

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These Peanut Butter Chocolate Owl Cupcakes are a hoot! A moist and dense peanut butter cupcake is topped with chocolate frosting, peanut butter candies, cookies and peanuts for a deliciously easy and festive fall dessert.

We’ve officially had a few cool days here in Missouri and that’s enough to get almost everyone I know excited about fall! My family celebrated the first weekend of 70 degree weather with a bonfire and a weenie roast! If you’re as excited about fall as I am, then you’re going to love these Peanut Butter and Chocolate Owl Cupcakes.

Moist and dense peanut butter cupcakes are topped with a rich, but easy to make chocolate frosting before the finishing touches of mini Nilla wafers, Reese’s Pieces candy, and peanuts are added to make these cute owl cupcakes. We’ve got so much peanut butter and chocolate goodness in these they are like Reese’s cups in the form of a cupcake.

Reasons to love these Peanut Butter Chocolate Owl Cupcakes:

  1.  They are super easy to make.
  2.  You don’t need to have great piping skills. Anyone can make these.
  3.  All the toppings and decorations go along with the flavor of the cupcakes and frosting.
  4. They work for Fall, Harvest parties, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and birthdays!
  5. You can make a “cheater” version with store bought cupcakes if you’re short on time. No judgment here!

Helpful Tips:

These cupcakes bake up soft, dense, moist and rich like a pound cake. The recipe calls for buttermilk, but feel free to make some DIY buttermilk by replacing one Tablespoon of the milk with lemon juice or cider vinegar and letting it sit for a few minutes if you don’t have any buttermilk on hand. I prefer to use creamy peanut butter for this recipe, but if chunky is all you have on hand that will work too. However, lowfat peanut butter will not work. 

The chocolate frosting that goes with these is a breeze to whip up, but it gets a crust to it pretty quickly so you want to get the decorations put on right as you pipe each cupcake for the best results. 

Two peanut butter chocolate owl cupcakes sit on a yellow cupcake wrappers surrounded by Reese's Pieces candy.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Owl Cupcakes

Yield: 15
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes
These Peanut Butter Chocolate Owl Cupcakes are a hoot! A moist and dense peanut butter cupcake is topped with chocolate frosting, peanut butter candies, cookies and peanuts for a deliciously easy and festive fall dessert.

Ingredients

For the Peanut Butter Cupcakes

  • 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup buttermilk

For the Chocolate Frosting

  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 2/3 cup baking cocoa
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup milk

For the Decorations

  • Mini Nilla wafers
  • Reese's Pieces candy
  • honey roasted peanuts

Instructions

  1. To Make the the Peanut Butter Cupcakes:
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
  3. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside for later.
  4. In a medium sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the peanut butter, eggs and vanilla and beat well. Next, the dry ingredients and the buttermilk, alternating between each and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
  5. Fill the cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake at 350 degrees for 20-23 minutes or until the cakes lightly spring back when touched and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  6. Cool for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
  7. To make the Chocolate Frosting:
  8. Whisk together the melted butter and the cocoa powder. Slowly mix in 3 cups of powdered sugar. Once the powdered sugar has all been added, whisk in the milk and vanilla extract until the frosting is smooth and no lumps remain.
  9. To Decorate the Owl Cupcakes:
  10. Using a plain round frosting tip, pipe a swirl of chocolate frosting onto each cupcake.
  11. Place 2 vanilla wafers into the center of the chocolate frosting.
  12. Add one orange Reese's pieces right between the vanilla wafers to be the beak.
  13. Pipe a tiny amount of frosting onto the vanilla wafers and affix 2 brown Reese's pieces for the eyes.
  14. Add 3 peanut halves to each side of the cupcake to be the wings.
  15. And finish by placing 2 yellow Reese's pieces to the bottom of the cupcake to be the owl's feet.

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