Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and Dipped Pretzels

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Chocolate. Peanut Butter. Pretzels. Caramel. This classic quartet is the perfect combo of sweet & salty and smooth & crunchy.

I’ve made many chocolate cakes with peanut butter frosting, such as these ones below. But, with Covid and concern for food safety, cupcakes are the better individual option with lower risk of sharing germs.

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Plus, cupcakes are much easier to transport! I made these cupcakes for my Grandpa’s birthday and dropped them by his house.

He’s a huge fan of chocolate and peanut butter so I started with those flavors as the cupcake and frosting flavors. I decided to put a chocolate-dipped pretzel on top as an easy decoration and to add crunch. Then, I finished it with a caramel drizzle as a final flavor add-in and decoration.

I won’t post the chocolate cupcake recipe here because I’m still tinkering with it and don’t have a fully worked-out version yet since I am adapting it from my favorite layered cake recipe (but I will eventually post it if you are interested).

So, this recipe is more of an idea and assembly list (and I will include the frosting recipe). Using a boxed cake mix will work great here or you can use your favorite homemade recipe if you prefer.

To make the dipped pretzels, I melted chocolate melting wafers then dipped pretzels and let them harden. I like the color contrast of the half-dipped pretzels, but if you want more chocolate you can dip them in fully.

For the caramel, you can make your own, but I just used store-bought caramel sauce since it’s mainly for decoration. The type I used had a squeezy tube lid which made it easy to drizzle over, but if yours doesn’t, you can use a Ziploc as a mini piping bag or use a fork to drizzle.

I’ll put the frosting recipe I use in the recipe card below. My mom has been making this peanut butter buttercream for years and it’s a family favorite. Keep in mind that because it includes peanut butter, it won’t be quite as stiff or pipeable as normal buttercream and will be softer. I used a wide star piping tip which worked great, but spreading it on with a spoon will work fine too.

You can leave out the caramel and pretzels if you want to keep it simple, or you can add extra decorations like:

• Mini peanut butter cups
• Chocolate sprinkles
• Mini chocolate or peanut butter chips
• Chocolate ganache drizzle
• Caramel popcorn
• Chopped Peanuts
• Crushed cookies

Get creative! No matter what you add or don’t add, it will be delicious.