Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes (With Surprise Filling) packs the center of rich and moist chocolate cupcakes with mini Reese’s Pieces! This exciting treat is then finished off with the best homemade peanut butter frosting!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes With A Surprise Inside!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes (With Surprise Filling) will be an instant crowd-pleasing dessert for their taste as well as that candy-filled surprise center! These cupcakes are incredibly easy-to-make yet show that you’ve really gone the extra mile from the miniature peanut butter cup on top right down to the surprise centers!

Bite into one of these cupcakes and enjoy every second of flavor and texture that fills your mouth! You get the light and fluffy Peanut Butter Frosting, crunchy mini Reese’s Pieces, and soft chocolate cupcakes all in one bite!

If there’s ever a chocolate peanut butter dessert combination to make, it’s THIS one, trust me! So grab a gallon of ice-cold milk and prepare to really WOW! your friends and family with this over-the-top hand-held dessert that will bring excitement to everyone’s face!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcake Ingredients

A delicious Peanut Butter Cupcake Recipe doesn’t get any easier than this one! Mostly because it starts out by combining a box Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix with a box of Jell-O Instant Chocolate Pudding.

From there it gets doctored up by adding in eggs, sour cream, vegetable oil, whole milk, vanilla extract, and salt. Once the cupcakes are baked, then comes the super fun part!

Coring out the center of each cupcake and filling them with mini Reese’s Pieces! Then hide that surprise candy-filled center by covering the cupcakes in the BEST homemade peanut butter frosting!

Quickly whip up this frosting by combining just 5-ingredients: unsalted butter, creamy peanut butter, powdered sugar, heavy cream, and vanilla extract. Then just finish off each cupcake with a Reese’s Miniature!

How To Make Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

1. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine all of the cupcake ingredients in a large bowl or stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.
3. Fill each liner about 3/4 full with cupcake batter. Next, reduce the heat to 350 degrees F.
4. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Then allow them to sit in the muffin pan before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool to room temperature.
5. Prepare the peanut butter flavored frosting while the cupcakes cool by first creaming the butters together.
6. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, alternating with tablespoons of heavy cream.
7. Stir in the vanilla extract then whip on medium-high speed until frosting is light and fluffy.
8. Core the cupcakes using a cupcake corer and fill the holes with mini Reese’s Pieces.
9. Pipe the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and top each one with a miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!

How To Store Chocolate Cupcakes

Since the heavy cream is stabilized by the confectioners’ sugar these cupcakes do not need to be refrigerated. They’re safe to eat for up to 2-3 days when stored at room temperature.

More Cupcake Recipes:

• Golden Oreo Cupcakes – Made easily by using doctored-up box cake mix!
• Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes – Finished off with a chocolate-covered strawberry!
• Coffee Maple Bacon Cupcakes – Maple-infused vanilla cupcakes topped with bacon!
• White Chocolate Raspberry Champagne Cupcakes – Completely with raspberry-filled centers!
• Chocolate Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cupcakes – Rich chocolate cupcakes dipped in cinnamon sugar!

This recipe was originally published in January 2014 and was updated with new photos in 2023.