Chocolate Peanut Butter Birthday Cupcakes

Got this facebook message:

Of course I said yes.  Wow, my first paying gig!!!  I told her to go on my pinterest cupcake board and see if there was something there that they would like.  I figured I could probably do whatever she picked.  Well, this is what she picked:

And this is what she got:

Not perfect, but they were cute and she liked them.

This is the website where the original recipe is found.  It's called "Bakers Royale".

http://www.bakersroyale.com/cupcakes/peanut-butter-and-chocolate-cupcake/

I followed her directions but used my chocolate cupcake recipe (yes, the same one) for the cake part.  There is a mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cup in the middle of the cake which is added before baking by putting a small amount of batter in the cup, add the reeses, then add the rest of the batter on top.  These baked for about 18 minutes.

I also used my standard chocolate buttercream for these.  I didn't think this was the time to try a chocolate swiss buttercream for the first time.  :)   These took a lot of frosting.  And when I say a lot of frosting, I mean a LOT of frosting.  I had to calculate it out.  I made a triple batch, and then made had to make one more batch before I was done.

For the life of me, I could not find my large circle piping tip.  I even went to the store multiple stores to find one, but no one had one, so I had to use my small circle tip.  The larger one would have looked better, but what was I to do.  I will have to order one on Amazon or something. Anyway, I piped in circles to make the mound and then I put them in the freezer as the instructions direct.

While they froze slightly, I made the the chocolate topping.  I used her recipe and I like it quite a lot, but I think I got it a little too thin.  I would have liked it a little less drippy.  I then took the cupcakes out of the freezer (they were there about 20 minutes) and started to top them with the chocolate sauce, add sprinkles and top with another peanut butter cup.  Then used a large star tip to top the peanut butter cup and then added the cherry.  

Tip:  I took the cherries out of the jar, choosing the ones with the "cutest" stems and I put them on some paper towels to kind of try them out.  I wanted to make sure they would stick to the frosting.

And there you have it.  She asked for 30 of them and the ingredients along were about $30.  These are expensive cupcakes to make, but they were really delicious.

Now, off to find a large circle tip on Amazon.