Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Peanut Butter Buttercream

These easy, fluffy Vanilla Bean Cupcakes are topped with a swirl of chocolate peanut butter American Buttercream and finished with a healthy dose of sprinkles. Mix and match your cupcake and buttercream recipes to make your own cupcake and frosting combinations.

Hi hi! Sneaking in here with just one more Valentine’s recipe for you - although I would absolutely make these year round, I just wanted an excuse to use some super pretty sprinkles! These Vanilla Bean Cupcakes are super simple, and extra delicious topped with a big swirl of chocolate peanut butter buttercream.

I actually don’t have a lot of cupcake recipes on the blog, which is weird because I love making them, and I love eating them! They are, to me, the perfect ratio of cake to buttercream, and I love piping buttercream and sprinkling sprinkles. Best combination of all of the fun things.

The cupcakes are my go-to vanilla cake, which is made using the reverse creaming method, which yields a finer crumb and a flatter top on the cake, making it perfect for cupcakes. As opposed to whipping lots of air into the cake through creaming butter and sugar, which creates pockets within the mixture, reverse creaming coats the flour with the fat, meaning that the flour is less hydrated, giving you a more tender crumb. The recipe comes together super, super easily, and is one of my favourites.

I topped these with a simple buttercream - a chocolate peanut butter American buttercream. I don’t often make an american buttercream, but the combination of peanut butter and cocoa powder works perfectly with the nostalgic flavour of the buttercream. American buttercream is much more simple method wise to make than a meringue or pastry cream based recipe, and I make mine slightly differently by really upping the ratio of heavy cream in the buttercream and whipping it hard, (lolololol) which gives a super light and fluffy buttercream which pipes like a dream. I went for the standard big swirl of buttercream on top of these, but you could also decorate them with an offset spatula or a different piping tip.

A few wee tips:

• I use vanilla bean paste in all of my baking. Vanilla extract works well too but paste is just the best. I always always use Heilala, who are an amazing company doing incredible things. You can purchase their products here - use the code CLOUDY20 for 20% off.
• If you like, you can make the cupcakes ahead of time - I made them the day before and stored them in an airtight container at room temperature.
• Mix and match these with any buttercream that you like! There’s a whole bunch on the site - this is a great way to use up any extra buttercream that you may have around.
• My cupcake liners were a little short so my cupcakes got a bit of a tan line - don’t be like me and buy higher liners so this doesn’t happen to you too.

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Peanut Butter Buttercream

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 16 reviews

• Author: Erin Clarkson
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 40 minutes
• Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes plus cooling time
• Yield: 12-14 Cupcakes 1x

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Description

These easy, fluffy Vanilla Bean Cupcakes are topped with a swirl of chocolate peanut butter American Buttercream and finished with a healthy dose of sprinkles. Mix and match your cupcake and buttercream recipes to make your own cupcake and frosting combinations.

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
• 1tsp vanilla bean paste
• 165g whole milk
• 60g full fat greek yoghurt or sour cream
• 300g all-purpose flour
• 225g sugar
• 1 ¾ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 175g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Chocolate Peanut Butter Buttercream 

• 265g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 230g smooth peanut butter
• 80g dutch process cocoa powder
• 540g powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• ¾ tsp salt
• 105g heavy cream, plus more as needed
• Sprinkles to finish

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Instructions

VANILLA BEAN CUPCAKES

1. Preheat the oven to 350°f / 180°c. Line 1-2 muffin pans with paper cupcake liners (I ended up with 14 cupcakes)
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, milk, and yoghurt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix briefly to combine.
4. With the mixer on low, add the butter a cube at a time, until fully incorporated and the mixture looks like wet sand.
5. Add half of the wet ingredients into the mixer. Mix until just combined, then add the second half of the wet ingredients. Mix on medium speed until just combined. Remove the bowl from the mixer and give a few folds with a rubber spatula to ensure that no dry ingredients remain.
6. Fill each cupcake liner with about ¼ cup of batter - you want them about ¾ full.
7. Bake the cupcakes for 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly golden brown and the top springs back when pressed. A toothpick inserted into the middle of the cupcake should come out with no crumbs attached.
8. Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes in their pans, then transfer to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER BUTTERCREAM

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and cocoa powder on medium speed until well combined. Add the powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste, and salt, and mix to combine.
2. Add the heavy cream and mix until incorporated, then increase the speed and whip until fluffy. Decrease the speed to low and mix for a few minutes to remove any air bubbles.
3. Transfer the buttercream to a piping bag fitted with a closed star tip (I used an ateco #846).

ASSEMBLY

1. Pipe a spiral of buttercream onto the top of each cupcake, and top with sprinkles. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

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