Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Published October 22, 2011 | By the bird feed nyc

These cupcakes are moist, rich, flavorful, and… VEGAN! We’ve always wanted to try Cherrybrook Kitchen’s cake mix. We see it every time we’re shopping at our favorite health food store. The “Gluten Free Dreams” Chocolate Cake Mix is:

peanut free (although we added peanut butter to ours!)
dairy free
egg free
wheat free
gluten free
all natural
certified vegan

We decided to make a Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcake with the mix. They were incredibly easy to make and absolutely delicious to eat!

What You’ll Need:

Cupcakes:

Cherrybrook Kitchen Gluten Free Dreams Chocolate Cake Mix
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup cold water
2 tsp vanilla

Frosting:

16 oz of Duncan Hines Chocolate Frosting (this frosting is vegan! If you’d like to use your own home made frosting, go ahead! Cherrybrook Kitchen also makes their own line of frosting.)
a few spoonfuls of your favorite peanut butter (other stir-in ideas: Nutella, almond butter, soy butter)

Topping:

Newman’s Own Peanut Butter Creme Filled Chocolate Cookies

Mixing, Baking, Decorating:

One medium mixing bowl and large spoon
Measuring cup and teaspoon
Cupcake pan and baking cups
Frosting bag (or a sturdy ziplock bag!)
Decorating tip

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Place baking cups in pan.
Follow the instructions on the box, mixing together the vegetable oil, cold water, vanilla, and cake mix.
Fill cups with batter and bake for about 22-25 minutes.
Cool for 10 minutes.

As the cupcakes are cooling, mix a few spoonfuls of peanut butter into your chocolate frosting.

Now it’s time to fill the cupcakes! Fill your frosting bag (or ziplock bag with hole and decorating tip reinforced with tape) with the chocolate peanut butter frosting.

Pipe the frosting into each cupcake by placing the decorating tip into the center of the cupcake, pushing down about an inch. As you squeeze the frosting, gently lift the bag up until a tiny little dollop of frosting peeks out the hole at the top.