What's better than peanut butter cupcakes? Well, for starters, peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate. And then for good measure, miniature peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate. In my opinion the best desserts are small and chocolate-laden.
As you know from seeing my ladybug cupcakes, I recently bought Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. Every time I flip through the book, I am tempted to make something. These peanut butter cookie cupcakes caught my eye because I wasn't quite in the mood for a cupcake, but the idea of cookie cupcakes intrigued me. A nice cross between a cookie and a cupcake, they came out a bit more dense than normal cupcakes.
The cupcakes are modeled after those peanut butter cookies we've all seen, had, or made in our lives -- the ones with the fork marks on top. I thought they looked adorable.
You can find the recipe on Martha's Web site, but she did forget one very important ingredient, so toss in a couple handfuls of chocolate chips after you mix in the sour cream. I used semisweet, but I'm sure milk chocolate or even bittersweet would be delicious as well.
And if you want to go real crazy, make minis instead of regular size muffins. And while you're thinking mini, tossing some mini chips on top of your frosted cookies (un-fork-marked ones) is quite delicious and looks really good too.
I actually did these cupcakes three ways: some frosted with the fork marks, some frosted with the mini chips, and some unfrosted.
All went over really well with the boyfriends' softball team and with my coworkers, as well as with the two of us. I mean really, can anyone resist the combination of peanut butter and chocolate in a nice bite-size portion?
Oh, and if you're a milk drinker, have a glass ready to go with these. The frosting is quite sticky!