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These easy peach cupcakes have the flavors of traditional peach cobbler packed into a cupcake! Moist and light cinnamon cupcakes are packed with peach pie filling in the middle of the cupcake and topped with a silky smooth vanilla buttercream frosting on top. These are guaranteed to become one of your favorite peach recipes!
Peach cobbler is a classic Southern recipe, and what's not to love? I love the flavors of peach cobbler and often make vegan peach cobbler and my delicious peach cobbler pound cake for special occasions. And now, you can enjoy the flavors of peach cobbler but in a handheld treat with this fun twist on the traditional cobbler!
Whether it's peach season or not, you can have tasty homemade peach cupcakes any time of year, because this peach cupcake recipe from scratch works great with fresh or frozen peaches. This handheld dessert is perfect to bring to your next party! Keep reading to get all my best tips on making delicious peachy cupcakes! Happy baking!
👩🏽🍳 Why This Recipe Works
- Packed With Peach Flavor: Cupcakes with peaches has all the flavors of classic peach cobbler packed into this dessert. It tastes like a little peach pie in your hands!
- Easy Cupcake Recipe: These treats look super fancy, but are actually really easy to make!
- Versatile: You don't need to wait until peach season to make these cupcakes. You can make this recipe for peach cupcakes with fresh peaches, canned, or even frozen peaches, so they are great to enjoy all year round!
- Easy To Customize: With just a few substitutions, you can make these little cakes vegan, gluten free, low in sugar, or change up the flavors! See our notes on variations below.
- Family Friendly: Kids and adults alike will love these peach vanilla cupcakes! They are a total crowd pleaser!
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🥘 Ingredients
This peach cobbler cupcake recipe requires simple ingredients, easily found at any grocery store! Here's what you need:
- Peach Filling: You'll need fresh juicy peaches, canned peaches, or frozen peaches, water, brown sugar, butter, salt, and corn starch (or cornflour). These simple ingredients come together to make a gooey peach pie filling that you'll add to the middle of these cupcakes.
- All-Purpose Flour: The base of these peach cinnamon cupcakes! You can use gluten-free all-purpose flour as well.
- Baking powder: Baking powder helps your cupcakes turn out nice and fluffy.
- Ground Cinnamon, Salt, Vanilla Extract, Light Brown Sugar: These 4 ingredients provide that sweet, depth of flavor, reminiscent of peach cobbler to these moist cupcakes.
- Lemon juice: Lemon juice is used a lot in baking to help balance flavors. In this peach cobbler cupcakes recipe, it brings out the natural sweetness of the fruit.
- Milk, Butter, Eggs: The butter, eggs and milk act as a binding agent for the creamy batter, and helps ensure that your cupcakes turn out light, fluffy, and delicious! You can use salted or unsalted butter for this recipe.
- Vanilla Buttercream Frosting: You'll need powdered sugar, butter, vanilla extract, and heavy whipping cream to create a good buttercream with the right consistency for these peaches and cream cupcakes.
🔪 How To Make Peach Cupcakes
Make Filling: Prepare the peach filling by adding all of the filling ingredients to a pot, except the cornflour. Note: if you're using fresh peaches, make sure to remove the skin before dicing them and adding them to the rest of the filling ingredients. Heat over medium heat until the butter and sugar have melted.
Make Slurry: In a medium bowl, mix the cornflour with 1 tsp water, mix to form a slurry. Pour the cornflour slurry into the cooked peaches, stirring continuously to thicken the sauce. Remove front the heat and allow to cool.
Make Cupcake Batter: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F / 180 C. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cupcake liners. Prepare the cupcakes by sifting the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Stir the lemon juice, milk, and vanilla extract together in a separate small bowl and set aside.
Mix Butter And Sugar. Add the softened butter and brown sugar to the bowl of a standing mixer with the paddle attachment (or other electric mixer), and mix on medium-high speed for 4 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add the egg.
Combine Batter Ingredients And Butter. Pour ½ of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, mix on a medium speed to incorporate. Next, add ½ of the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and mix to combine. Add remaining wet and dry ingredients and mix for another 2-3 minutes until well combined.
Bake. Evenly divide the batter between the cupcake liners in the cupcake tins. You can use a large ice cream scoop for this step to make it easier! Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the tops are lightly golden brown or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
Cool. Remove and allow these fluffy cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes in the tray before transferring to a cooling wire rack to cool completely to room temperature.
Prep buttercream. Prepare the buttercream by combining the softened butter and powdered sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and beat on medium speed for 4-5 minutes.
Mix. Add the vanilla and cream and continue to mix for another 1-2 minutes.
Assemble cupcakes. To assemble these peach themed cupcakes, take a small knife and remove the center of each cupcake, making sure not to cut all the way to the bottom of the cupcake.
Add chopped peaches to cupcakes. Fill the holes with the peach filling, reserving some of the filling.
Frost cupcakes. Next, pipe or dollop buttercream on top of the cupcakes.
Finish with the reserved peach filling, repeat until all of your peach pie cupcakes are topped. Serve & enjoy!
💭 Expert Tips
- Use ripe peaches! If you're using canned or frozen peaches, they're picked at their peak ripeness, so you don't have to worry about checking for ripeness. But if you're using fresh peaches, make sure they're ripe before using them.
- Remove peach skin. If using fresh peaches, remove the skin before dicing.
- Cool completely. Allow the filling and cupcakes to cool completely before assembling, otherwise you'll end up with a runny filling and cupcakes that fall apart!
- Don't overmix! Adding the wet and dry ingredients in stages when making the cupcake batter prevents over-mixing of the batter. You want to stir the ingredients until just combined.
- Use stand mixer or electric hand mixer. Cupcake batter and buttercream can be made using a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer - this saves time and also prevents overmixing.
- Don't cut cupcakes all the way to the bottom. When removing the centers of the peach filled cupcakes, don't cut all the way to the bottom otherwise the cupcake will fall apart when eating. I recommend using either a cupcake corer or a small knife to remove the centers of each cupcake.
- Top the cupcakes. If you don't have a piping bag to pipe the buttercream, a small spoon works fine to add the icing to the top of each cupcake.
📖 Variations
- Peach Cobbler Cupcakes With A Crumble Topping: Instead of icing, top the cupcakes with a crumble topping made from a mixture of flour or graham crackers, butter, sugar, and cinnamon for that cobbler-like texture.
- Vegan Peach Cupcakes: Use vegan butter, almond milk, and flax eggs for this recipe.
- Box Cake Mix Cupcakes: To save some time, you could make this recipe with a box of yellow cake mix, and use that instead of the vanilla cinnamon cupcake base. Bake the cake mix in a cupcake pan, let it cool, then follow the instructions for making the peach chunks and frosting.
- Make It Gluten Free: Make these into gluten free peach cupcakes by replacing the all purpose flour with 1:1 gluten free baking flour. You could also try gluten free oat flour, but the cupcakes may be a little dense.
- Low Sugar Peach Cupcakes: Reduce the amount of frosting on each cupcake by half or even 2/3, and you'll cut about 15-20 grams of sugar from each cupcake!
- Other Flavors: Try mixing other flavors into the peach filling! Add some candied ginger, shredded coconut, or raspberry jam!
🫙 Storage Directions
At Room Temperature: Store peach cobbler cupcakes in an airtight container on your kitchen counter for 1-2 days.
In The Fridge: These sweet peach cupcakes can also be put in the fridge to keep them longer, up to 3 or 4 days, but they won't retain much moisture in the fridge so they won't taste quite as fresh. If you're storing them in the fridge, I recommend taking them out a few hours before serving so they come to room temperature before you dig in! (Note: This recipe doesn't freeze well so it's best to enjoy these cupcakes within a few days of making them!)
❓Recipe FAQs
Can you add fruit to cupcake batter?
Yes, you can add fruit to cupcake batter! Here are some tips to make sure that your fruit filled cupcakes bake up nicely when the fruit is added:
* Wash and dry the fruits completely before adding them to the batter.
* Make sure to dice your fruits small, so they distribute evenly throughout the cupcakes.
* Roll fruit pieces in flour before adding them to the batter to prevent them from sinking or bleeding into the batter.
* Gently fold the fruit into the cupcake batter using a spatula or spoon. Be careful not to overmix!
* Feel free to add the fruit after baking - as we did in this fresh peach cupcakes recipe! Since baking cupcakes with fresh fruit can make them soggy, you can make the cupcakes first, core out the centers, and fill them with fruit after baking!
What can you use instead of frosting on cupcakes?
Instead of the buttercream frosting typically found on peach cupcakes, you can also make peach cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, whipped cream, a powdered sugar glaze, a dusting of powdered sugar, or a drizzle of nut butter.
