My dad's birthday happens to be the day after my husband's so I almost immediately had another chance to make cupcakes. I still had a half a bag of mini peanut butter cups remaining (see previous post) and also a 3/4 full box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates leftover from a dinner party (thanks Steph!). My decision of what to make was made extremely easy by the fact that I had already been eyeing off Willow Bird Baking's dual recipe for Ferrero Rocher and Reese's Cup Cupcakes. I was also keen to see what the cake base was like, as it's vegan - both egg and dairy free.
I'm not always this organised, but decided to get all my ingredients out and ready on the bench. This caused some unexpected amusement. Everything except the vanilla essence was Homebrand!
The cakes came out looking lovely and glossy, which I assume is down to the use of vegetable oil rather than butter.
When the cakes were cooled I hollowed out a hole in each, then filled half with Nutella (generic chocolate hazelnut spread would be fine too) and half with peanut butter cream (the icing leftover from my previous batch of Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes... but you could also use smooth peanut butter without anything added).
The "Perfectly Chocolate" icing that Julie suggests is beautifully dark and rich. I refrigerated the icing for a couple of hours after making it to give it a chance to firm up, and when I took it out it seemed quite stable... but that didn't last long. Once I started piping it onto the cakes it quickly warmed up from the heat in my hands and got extremely messy!
So let me add to Julie's warning - ice these as quickly as you can, get them straight into the fridge, and keep them in there for at least a couple of hours before serving. I was running low on time so these only had about an hour of cooling time before I transported them. They still tasted great but had a really soft, almost pudding-like consistency. They're much less flimsy if you can refrigerate them longer.
I made some mini cupcakes which I filled and iced, but didn't top with candy. You can see one below that I did top with a mini peanut butter cup (to help identify which mini cakes were peanut butter-filled, as opposed to Nutella-filled) - but I think it's a bit overkill, considering that there's almost as much candy as cake.
I think these are fantastic for a special occasion - a bit fancy - but they would also be delicious (+ more economical & fewer calories) without the chocolate toppers.
It was difficult to get a decent photo because we ate these before they were properly set, but you can at least see that they were lovely and moist - a very chocolatey little creation.
Peanut butter-filled mini cupcake.
These were the surviving cupcakes which went into the fridge and proved how much better the originals would have set, given the proper cooling time. Nevertheless they were a good batch indeed, and I'd be very happy to use the vegan cake base again.
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