Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/4 cup of peanut butter (I used crunchy for the texture)
• 150ml of soya/rice milk
• half a ripe, mashed banana
• a few drops of vanilla essence
• Just over one cup of plain flour
• 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 3/4 teaspoons of baking powder
• a tiny dash of salt (though the peanut butter can be quite salty)
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

And for the chocolate icing:

• 1/2 cup of dairy-free margarine (I used Pure olive, though I think sunflower/soya may have been a little better!)
• 3 cups sifted icing sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• Teaspoon of vanilla essence
• enough non-dairy milk or water to make a creamy texture

DIRECTIONS:

So to make the cupcakes, firstly preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and put cupcake liners in two trays (though I only had one and had to wait ages for 2 batches…) Mix together the wet ingredients using an electric mixer - I didn’t use one and it took far too long to get the lumps out! Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and then combine the two to form a lovely thick batter. Spoon into the paper cases about 2/3 full and pop them into the pre-heated oven to cook for around 20-25 minutes.
While they’re cooking, you can make the delicious chocolate butter icing, which is super easy. Just cream the butter (recipe calls for an electric mixer but this is unnecessary, work those arm muscles) and then slowly mix in the icing sugar, sifting then mixing, until it is all worked into the butter. Cream in the cocoa and vanilla, add some milk or water if it is too dry, and you’re done.