Aztec Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

I always say I'm not much of a "cake person" but somehow, this winter, I get the urge to bake and eat cakes and cupcakes alike. Who knew? The challenge is finding a concept of a cake that will be satisfying to me. I don't go for the pretty, colorful, fluffy confetti cakes out there. I like real deep flavor so you will see I'm often drawn to a spice cake or carrot cake- something with character. These cupcakes are rustic looking to say the least. They aren't exactly pretty, but they taste great. I call these Aztec cupcakes because aside from the no-brainer pairing of chocolate and peanut butter I did a flip flop from the usual and made peanut butter cake with dark chocolate frosting. The peanut butter part has cinnamon and the dark chocolate frosting has cayenne so it really gives depth of flavor.
As usual, these are gluten free but throw in some gluten if you like ;)

To make the cake:

• 1 cup sorghum flour
• 3/4 cup coconut flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon 
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 cup peanut butter (creamy) 
• 12 tablespoons of butter or other fat, softened 
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar) 
• 3 eggs 
• 1 generous teaspoon vanilla 
• 1/3 cup buttermilk 

To make the frosting:

• 4 1/2 cups of powdered sugar or powdered stevia baking mix 
• 1 cup cocoa powder
  
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional- if you don't like heat- skip) 
• 9 tablespoons butter, softened 
• 9 tablespoons heavy cream 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 

This is a fairly straight forward recipe. You can make the cupcakes up to a few days ahead before frosting. You can make this into a two layer cake by using 8" round cake pans or like I did, I have a double wide mini-muffin/ cupcake try that I used to make mini cupcakes. 

Preheat your oven to 350. Grease and line muffin tins. To make the batter for cupcakes combine dry ingredients including cinnamon into a medium sized bowl. 

Using your electric mixer cream together your butter and sugar for two minutes then add your peanut butter. Combine for another minute- then add your eggs one at a time. Scrap down the sides and add vanilla before adding in the dry ingredients. Finally, on medium, slowly add your buttermilk. Spoon batter (it will be fairly thick from the pb) into tins and bake for 12-15 minutes for mini cupcakes. If you have regular sized they will bake up to 22-25 minutes. Cool and store until you are ready to frost. 

Using your electric mixer to make the frosting combine cocoa and sugar in a medium bowl by measuring them out and sifting into the bowl to avoid lumps. Cream the sugar/cocoa mixture along with butter and cayenne. Add vanilla and on medium high slowly add the cream until well combined. Mine came out thick and in hind sight I would have added more cream to achieve more of a gloss but you be the judge- don't add more until you have seen the results with these measurements. The butter I use is very rich so this may have contributed to the issue. You can simply use a good old butter knife to frost or place frosting in a hefty inside-out ziplock bag with a corner cut out to pipe the frosting out of (by squeezing the top). 

xoxo Renee