Peanut butter oreo cupcakes with oreo and peanut butter frosting

Every year, RSPCA hosts a Cupcake day to raise funds.

“Last year, you helped us raise $1.1 million to assist in the care and protection of Australia’s animals. This year we want to top that total with hundreds and thousands, and reach our target of $2.5 million!”

Every year, I am the cupcake eater and not baker. But this year, I thought to myself that I should roll up my sleeves and bake some cupcakes. There are only so many I can eat but by baking, I will be able to contribute more! I was very hopeful that my cupcakes will turn out alright.

In Mister’s recent trip to Sydney, he did a food exchange on my behalf with Pam’s (My Man’s Belly) hubby that flew in from LA for a business trip. Tim Tams and Cherry Ripe in exchange for peanut butter, Hershey’s, Oreo and many more naughty snacks. I am actually still going through the lot. So good so bad for waistline!

In this cupcake recipe, I made use of the salted crunchy peanut butter. These peanut butter from Traders are super rich, super peanuty and super yummy. And the Oreo, they are different! More crisp! They taste better than the ones from Melbourne. I happened to have leftovers oreo and both Mister and I could taste the different.

Oreos and peanut butter

Ingredients – Adapted from Kitchen Wench

Cupcake

• 60g unsalted butter
• 10 oreos, remove filling and bash the biscuits up (use 1/2 into batter mixture and other 1/2 for frosting)
• 220g brown sugar
• 150g peanut butter (smooth or chunky, whatever your preference!)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
• 225g all-purpose flour
• 100ml buttermilk

Cupcake mixture

Frosting

• 250g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1-2 cups soft icing mixture
• 60g of peanut butter
• Bashed up oreo crumbs
• 9 pieces of oreo (break into half for decoration)

Cupcake ready

I’ve spooned too much mixture in some of the cases and some were not suitable for the frosting. What I did was to cut the top and filled it with marshmellow fluff cream and in some lucky ones, I added a small piece of bounty. Very naughty?

marshmallow filling

Ad hoc filling

• Marshmallow fluff cream
• Bounty bar

marshmallow filling with bounty

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, then beat together the butter, brown sugar and peanut butter till creamy, then add the eggs and vanilla and beat till smooth
2. Set aside the batter, and sift together the flour, bicarb soda and baking powder
3. Fold the flour into the batter in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and add oreo crumbs. Spoon cupcake mixture into cases and bake for 20 minutes, or till a wooden skewer inserted into the cupcakes comes out with moist (not wet) crumbs
4. Once baked, set the cupcakes on a wire rack to completely cool, then proceed to fill and decorate however you wish
5. For the frosting, just add the soft cream cheese, peanut butter and icing sugar and beat till all just combine. Do not over beat! You are meant to add the oreo crumbs at this point. I forgot and so just crumbled on top of the frosting after
6. These cupcakes do develop a fairly hard crust so I would suggest icing them at least a few hours (and up to 24hrs) before serving as this will help soften the crust
7. As this is a cream cheese frosting, I recommend storing them in the refrigerator if keeping overnight

Peanut butter and oreo cupcake with oreos and peanut butter frosting

I am really pleased with this batch of cupcakes. The cake was moist, the frosting was almost perfect. Not too heavy or sweet. The oreo really made a big difference in making this cupcake a bit of an indulgence. And it looks so pretty sitting on top of the cream cheese frosting. And do you know this is the first time that I have used a piping bag. A little dodgy but I am with practise, I shall get better

A mouthful of cupcake

Glad to say that my cupcakes were the first to sell out at work! I guess many of us love peanut butter or oreo. And also I am glad that we managed to sell all the cupcakes at work and contributed over $450 to RSPCA. I will definitely do it again next year and more pumped to bake more.

Any tips for baking cupcakes? Please do share.