Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

In my quest to deliver deliciousness via cupcakes to the masses, I imagine I'll experience a few pitfalls as well as a few successes along the way.

I'm not sure how I'd classify this cupcake:

By all accounts, this looks like a pretty tasty cupcake. And yes, it was a tasty cupcake. Unfortunately, it came out a bit more dense than I'd planned it to be. It was almost more of a brownie texture than a cakey texture. Delicious, yes, yes of course, but this isn't BrowniesOMG! okay?


The peanut butter cream cheese frosting was yummy, absolutely, but it was a bit salty. Some liked it, some (i.e., me) thought it could have been sweeter.

My main disappointment though was that when I pulled these suckers out of the oven, they went from this, domed and high and puffy with so much promise...


...to this...


...in mere seconds. They didn't all fall flat, but yeah, that's basically what happened. Was it the 8 eggs in the batter? Yeah, probably. Was it the three sticks of butter the recipe called for?



Oh, without a doubt.


But hey, at least they were edible. I'm farily certain my cupcake tasters enjoyed them.
In the event you feel inclined to subject your insulin and cholesteral levels to this treat, here's what you need:

Lotta butter, lotta eggs, lotta chocolate.
Start by chopping the chocolate:


Then melt the butter with the chocolate:
Then you do some more stuff, but I don't have any pictures of that part...


And about 25 minutes later, you take 'em out of the oven:

Heyyyy, allllllriiiiiiiiight!

Ah, crap. FML.


Okay, well, no one will notice once you cover them in peanut butter cream cheese frosting.

Chocolate Cupcakes (adapted from cupcakeblog.com)
24 regular cupcakes (I got 16 'cus I'm doing something wrong)
350 degree oven (I set mine at 400 degrees to pre-heat and turned it down to 350 once I popped them in the oven with the goal of getting that domed effect. I'm still workin' out the kinks.)

200 gram bar of Dark Chocolate
3 sticks butter
2-1/4 cups sugar
8 eggs (you read that right)
1-1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt

1. chop chocolate and transfer into a bowl.
2. add butter to the chocolate and place the bowl over a pan of simmering water to create a double boiler. stir until chocolate melts and butter is combined.
3. remove from heat and stir in sugar. let mixture cool for 10 minutes.
4. beat in an electric mixer for 3 minutes.
5. add one egg at a time, mixing for 30 seconds between each
6. sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and a pinch of salt into the mixture and mix until blended.
7. scoop into cupcake cups and bake at 350 F for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Peanut Butter frosting (this didn't make quite enough for me, so you may want to up the proportions by half)

1 8-oz package of cream cheese
1 stick of butter
3/4 cups of creamy peanut butter
4 cups of powdered sugar

In a bowl, whip together the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add in powdered sugar about a cup at a time until light in color. Add peanut butter. Frost cooled cupcakes.