Butterfinger lovers unite and eat these Dark Chocolate Butterfinger Cupcakes! Dark chocolate cupcakes topped with over the top Butterfinger buttercream frosting and chocolate ganache. The ultimate way to eat your Halloween candy.

The first Halloween that we moved to our new neighborhood we had no idea how many Trick or Treaters we would get. Common sense would have told us to ask the neighbors but no one ever accused us of having common sense. 🙂 So we just started buying bags of candy every time we went to the grocery store…and food bloggers go to the grocery store a lot. We had so much candy. So much. And while we ate our weight in candy before Halloween we still had a ton. We got one Trick or Treater that year, the neighbors dressed up their pug as a bumble bee since they felt bad that no one came by. And while he was too cute for words, he wasn’t really going to take our Snickers. We did give his mom and dad some candy but at the end of the day we had more candy than I knew what to do with.

Nowadays I just pretend we get a ton of kids so that I have an excuse to buy candy. Because when everything is fun sized it doesn’t have calories…I read that on the Internet so you know it’s true. 😉

I had a variety of candy to choose, from but I asked my Culinary Concoctions by Peabody readers on Facebook which would they like to see in a cupcake and hands down the winner was Butterfingers. I don’t blame them. The hard part was not eating them before they went into the frosting.

If you are reading cake mix and groaning feel free to make your own cupcake from scratch (THIS is the recipe I use most for chocolate cupcakes). I went with box this time because cake mix was on sale for $.97 a box and you just can’t beat that especially when you have teens at home who can eat a whole pizza without blinking an eye (or gaining a pound…grrr that youthful metabolism), so we are all about saving money where we can.

If you are not a fan of dark chocolate feel free to use a different chocolate cake mix (or scratch recipe). I just felt that the dark chocolate help cut some of the sweetness from the candy in the buttercream frosting.

My hockey team were the recipients of the cupcakes and they thought they were insanely good and I’m sure you will too!

Dark Chocolate Butterfinger Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 box (15.5 oz) Dark Chocolate Cake Mix
3 eggs
1 cup water
½ cup vegetable oil
For the frosting:
8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 TBSP heavy cream
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 fun sized Butterfingers, chopped
For the chocolate topping:
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
4 TBSP butter
Optional: Butterfinger Bites for garnish

Instructions

For the cupcakes:
Prepare the cupcakes according to the directions on the box.
Set aside to cool while you prepare frosting.
For the frosting:
Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment beat together the butter, cream, and vanilla on medium-low until smooth and well-combined.
Slowly add powdered sugar.
Once powdered sugar is barely mixed in, increase speed to medium-high and beat for 2 minutes. Add in the Butterfinger pieces and beat until the Butterfingers are crushed and the frosting is back to smooth.
Generously frost or pipe frosting on cupcakes.
For the chocolate topping:
In a microwave safe bowl, heat chocolate chips and butter, stopping every 30 seconds to stir until combined and smooth.
You have two options at this point.
If you are skilled you can dip the cupcake into the chocolate. If you do that you are going to want to refrigerate the frosted cupcakes so as not to melt the cupcakes. I am not skilled. 🙂
Option two is to let the chocolate cool slightly and pipe it on to the top of the cupcake. I went with option two.
Add a Butterfinger Bite to the top as a garnish.