Cupcake fun!!

I love making desserts, then munching on them until I realized I ate about half of what I made (but I'm sure I'm not alone on that). Finding new recipes and trying them out is so much fun. Running into recipies that make me go "That looks amazing! I need to go try that - NOW!!" doesn't always happen, but when I ran across this recipe for peanut butter filled brownie cupcakes, I couldn't help but think that. They turned out so yummy!! I even broke out the frosting and had some fun.

Ingredients:

Brownies:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup Cocoa
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

*Note: if running short on time, you could use a brownie mix, but for me, the extra effort of homemade  brownies goes a long way*


Filling:

• 1/3 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 1/2 oz. cream cheese

Optional:

• peanut butter cups
• frosting

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Stir together butter, sugar and vanilla in bowl. Add eggs; beat well with spoon. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; gradually add to egg mixture, beating until well blended.
3. Line 16 to 18 cups of a standard muffin tin with bake cups. Combine the filling ingredients in a medium-size bowl and beat them with an electric mixer until evenly blended. The texture should be like whipped peanut butter. If it's not stiff enough, add a little extra peanut butter.
4. Fill each muffin cup about halfway with brownie batter. Spoon about 2 teaspoons of peanut butter filling into the center, pushing it down slightly into the batter. Cover the filling with another spoonful of batter, making sure that the cups are no more than about two thirds to three quarters full.
5. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, just until well risen and cracked on top. Then transfer the pans to a wire rack and cool for 30 minutes. Remove the brownies from the pan and place them directly on the wire rack to finish cooling (they'll sink as they do) before serving.
6. Once cooled, ice as desired. Cut peanut butter cup into 6 pieces, and place 1 piece on top of icing.

Yield: 18 to 20 brownies

Adding the filling is a little extra work and clean up, but SO worth the effort. Upon bringing these to bible study, they were gone in a matter of minutes.

You could eat them, or put them on a pretty platter and admire your work :).