Love and Olive Oil

Chocolate Honey Cupcakes with Roasted Peanuts

Chocolate Peanut Honey Cupcakes with Honey Vanilla Buttercream

We have some really incredible locally-produced honey here in Tennessee. We pick up a giant jar of raw dark wildflower honey at the Farmers’ Market every few months or so, and use it in everything from tea to salad dressings to baked goods. I swear, once you buy some really good pure honey, you will never go back to the cheap-o store stuff (yes, I’m talking about you, Mr. Bear).

A few weeks back I made a chocolate cake, and the cake recipe I used included honey in the batter. Which I didn’t think much of until we were eating it that night. And you know what? You could actually taste the honey. It was a delicious complement to the richness of the chocolate itself.

So I took that idea (as I often do), and downsized it into cupcake form. Mixed in some roasted peanuts (because as a child who would choose a pb & honey sandwich over a pb&j anyday, I knew they were a perfect match), and topped it off with a subtly sweet and buttery rich honey buttercream. Yum. The honey adds an unexpected note of sweetness and depth of flavor to these cupcakes that you can actually taste in the final cake (surprisingly it does not bake out). Not to mention that since honey is naturally moisture-loving, these are some of the moistest cupcakes you will ever eat. To put it concisely, these cupcakes are all-around scrumptious.

Granted, Taylor has never been a fan of peanut butter and cake in the same bite, and while I had hoped that the ground peanuts would differ from simply adding peanut butter, I still think he would have preferred these sans-peanut. But I am sure he won’t put up a fight when I ask him to help me finish off this batch. I mean, cake is cake, right?

Chocolate Honey Cupcakes with Roasted Peanuts

Chocolate Honey Cupcakes with Roasted Peanuts and Honey Vanilla Buttercream

Makes 12 cupcakes.

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Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup soy milk
  • 1/3 cup canola oil
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup roasted unsalted peanuts, finely ground

For Frosting:

  • 2 large egg whites
  • 3/8 cup sugar
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 cups (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line muffin pan with paper liners.
  2. Whisk together the soy milk, oil, sugar, honey, and vanilla extract until incorporated. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix in peanuts. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and pour in soy milk mixture. Stir until just smooth (do not overmix).
  3. Pour into liners, filling each with 3 tablespoons of batter (cups should be no more than 2/3 full). For mini cupcakes, fill each with 1 tablespoon batter. Bake 18-20 minutes (or 10-12 for minis), or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.
  4. To make buttercream, combine the sugar, honey, and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, 7-10 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like melted marshmallow cream. Remove from heat and transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer, and whisk on high speed until mixture is completely cooled and stiff peaks form, about 6-10 minutes. Add butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, on low speed, mixing well after each addition. If at any point mixture looks separated or curdled, stop adding butter. Increase speed to high and beat until mixture smooths out again. Reduce speed, and continue adding remaining butter. Beat in vanilla and food coloring (if desired). Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.
All images and text © / Love & Olive Oil

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446 Comments

  1. Fun! Thanks for a great giveaway and a delicious blog!

  2. Those cupcakes look wonderful!

  3. Wow!! I’ve been lurking here for quite some time and while the added bonus of potentially winning amazing-looking baking tools is great, what I really want to say is that I, too, LOVE PB&Honey sandwhiches. Always have. They are a million times better than PB&J.

  4. Your love of honey goes way back to your Winnie the Pooh Birthday Cake!
    Count me in on this giveaway!
    I will be making these soon, with our Farmer’s Market honey.
    Mom

  5. woo! those cupcakes look delicious. I’ll have to try that recipe soon.

  6. i can’t wait to try to bake the cupcakes!

  7. wow, your cupcakes look amazing (:

  8. Looks delicious. I’m going to make them this week without the peanuts. Love the giveaway too. Such vivid colors. I hope I win!!

  9. LOVE getting your weekly updates
    would also LOVE to win the chef’n products
    maybe it would help me become less of a closet chef?
    i also twittered my first tweet about this!
    http://twitter.com/danigorgi

  10. You never fail to impress, Lindsay! :) Great cupcake and fingers crossed on the contest :)

  11. Looks interesting but delicious! I love the colorful giveaway items!

  12. Those bowls are so cute! I love the bright and vivid colors!

  13. the colors on the bowls are fun seeing as they would probably be sitting out on the counter in our kitchen!

  14. love the blog and the bowls. they are great colors and i need some collapsible bowls in my little apartment kitchen!

  15. Hope I win. :)

  16. Yummmmm!

  17. Beautiful cupcakes, as always. They remind me of the peanut butter, honey, and Nutella sandwiches I’ve been making!

  18. a comment. Ha, ha just kidding. Always enjoy your recipes Lindsay

  19. I also tweeted about it @maddypage

  20. This giveaway is too cute!

  21. LOVE your blog and LOVE the look of that gear! :D

  22. That set looks great! I need prep bowls like nobody’s business!

  23. Sounds good! love your blog :)

  24. I also luv to find good recipes that use wonderful local honey! This one looks like a keeper!

  25. This recipe sounds very interesting. I’m going to try them but instead of soy milk, I will be using rice milk. Everyone at work looks forward to trying out the newest creations. Thanks
    I will be letting all my fellow friends on facebook about this site.

  26. The blue on those measuring cups are so pretty, and I really need more bowls – mine are red and really don’t photograph well.

  27. Chocolate and honey sounds interesting and delish!

  28. I can’t wait to try these!

  29. These look yummy!

  30. Love this and love your blog!!!

  31. Thank you for the opportunity for this giveaway. tara r s at comcast dot net

  32. Mmmmm… Now I want cupcakes and a peanut butter and honey sandwich.

  33. Your Grandma Karen told me about this blog. Will mention it on my facebook, too.

  34. I has just eaten peanut butter and honey toast when I saw this recipe. I am so excited to try it. Also, the kitchenware is adorable.

  35. Honey vanilla buttercream sounds divine! And those cooking tools look awesome too!

  36. I love these measuring cups and bowls! i always need new ones and these would be great!

  37. i posted on my blog too – bakingsweettreats.blogspot.com

  38. I cannot wait to make these. I’m getting my wisdom teeth taken out tomorrow so I have to wait :( But these are definitely on my to-make list.

  39. Those cupcakes look absurdly delicious! And who would not love such a fantastic giveaway?

  40. I am going to make these tonight, hubby loves anything with peanuts in it and can hardly wait for me to make them. Would really like to have the giveaway in my kitchen in BC.

  41. The mixing bowls are so cute! I would love to have that in my kitchen :)

  42. You turned me on to that very honey you have pictured last summer at the farmers’ market & I LOVE it! Have used it so much since~
    My mother-in-law gave me some of those collapsible measuring cups for Xmas this year and they are great! Very cute stuff :-)

  43. These are all such adorable, useful, cleverly designed and constructed pieces!

  44. Please pick me!!! I would love to bake with these lovely items!

  45. I recently bought some local honey too. My husband agrees that local is luscious. Never thought about putting in it cake! Looks great!

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