Peanut-Butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Peanut-butter Filled Chocolate Cupcakes

Cupcakes:

2/3 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cut into pieces

4 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Whisk together flour and bp. Put butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water -- I used my stainless steel mixing bowl and a small saucepan -- and stir until the ingredients melt together. Remove from heat and let cool somewhat.

Whisk in sugar, then add eggs one at a time, mixing until smooth. Add vanilla. Add flour mixture.

Peanut Butter Filling:

4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter, melted

1/2 cup xxx sugar, sifted

3/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk ingredients together until smooth.

Put a few spoonfuls of batter in your tins, then add a spoonful of the peanut butter mixture; top with more batter to cover.

Bake for 20 minutes, then turn, and bake for another 20.

I used my silicon baking cups for this recipe, which bumped the number of cupcakes up from 12 to 16 (the cups are slightly smaller than a normal cupcake tin), but they worked pretty well. On the other hand, the filling caused these cupcakes to separate  somewhat -- the tops came off really easily, which made it difficult to take them out of the cups, meaning you more or less have to eat them with a spoon or fork out of the cup. So given that structural deficiency, I think in the future I'd tend to do them in a regular wrapper, and save the silicups for something with more overall structural integrity.

My dad, who loves chocolate-peanut butter, and was the target audience for these cupcakes (bleahhhh is my personal opinion on the subject), said they nonetheless tasted great. He described the cupcake itself as being brownie-like, and then added "you won't have any trouble getting me to eat them". So I guess we can consider these a success!

A final note: the recipe also called for 2 oz unsweet chocolate added to the semisweet chocolate in the batter, but I didn't notice and left it out. The cupcakes don't seem to have suffered any, but if you like a more chocolate flavor you may want to add this back in.

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes.