Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting Recipe

These dark chocolate cupcakes feature intensely flavored moist chocolate cupcakes, a silky peanut butter frosting, and a delightful Reese’s Pieces crunch on top.

Readers have called these dark chocolate cupcakes a chocolate & peanut butter lover’s dream dessert! All we did here was make a batch of these chocolate cupcakes, intensify the chocolate flavor by using dark cocoa powder, and top with something all of us peanut butter aficionados can appreciate.

Tell Me About These Dark Chocolate Cupcakes

• Texture: The dark chocolate cupcake’s texture is soft, airy, and sponge-y; because they’re made with oil, they are much softer than these buttery vanilla cupcakes. The frosting is incredibly creamy. Imagine indulging in a spoonful of pure peanut butter, but with a fluffier, silkier texture.
• Flavor: The cupcakes offer a rich dark chocolate flavor and what you’ll love most about the frosting is that it’s not overly sweet. All you taste is peanut butter. Which makes sense because it’s mostly all peanut butter—only 1 cup of confectioners’ sugar, which is low for frosting!
• Ease: There’s really nothing complicated in this recipe besides making sure you have the right cocoa powder. If you can’t find Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder, just use regular natural unsweetened cocoa powder. (The cupcakes will still have an intense chocolate flavor, similar to this triple chocolate cake.)

Choosing the Right Ingredients

• Dark cocoa: Instead of using unsweetened natural cocoa powder, we reached for a darker cocoa powder instead. Hershey’s makes a “Special Dark” cocoa powder that has a deep, dark, and bold chocolate flavor. Here’s something interesting, though. Hershey’s special dark contains both natural and Dutched cocoa powder—it’s a blend of both. As you know, there’s a huge difference between Dutch process vs. natural cocoa powder. And I never suggest substituting, but this recipe is an exception.
• Hot coffee: Hot liquid enhances the cocoa powder’s flavor. It also encourages it to bloom and dissolve appropriately. I promise these cupcakes don’t taste like coffee at all! If you don’t drink coffee, you can use hot water. For deeper and richer flavor, though, use coffee. You can either brew it in a coffee maker or make instant coffee. Decaf coffee works!
• Oil: Cocoa powder is a very drying ingredient, so you’ll usually find it paired with oil in cake and cupcake recipes. Oil provides moisture and doesn’t weigh down a baked good. Vegetable oil is ideal, but melted coconut oil or even light olive oil may be used instead.
• Buttermilk: If you can’t find buttermilk at the store, you can make this DIY buttermilk substitute with whole milk and either white vinegar or lemon juice.
• Sprinkles: Crushing Reese’s Pieces turns them into Reese’s Pieces “sprinkles.” You can certainly skip them or garnish the cupcakes with sprinkles or even crushed peanuts instead.

Key Success Tips for Chocolate Cupcakes & Peanut Butter Frosting

By the way, these dark chocolate cupcakes would also be fantastic with the frosting from these chocolate cupcakes with raspberry frosting! Or you can fill the cupcakes, like we do for these cream-filled chocolate cupcakes.