Inside-out Peanut Butter Cups

Reeses peanut butter cups are some of my favorite candys. Peanut butter is one of the greatest pleasures in life, in my humble opionion. So when I saw this post from cakespy on Serious Eats, I knew I had to try it! Inside out peanut butter cups?! I'm in!

The outer cookie cooked up nice and peanutbuttery, and the inner feeling was kind of reminiscent of peanut butter fudge or pudding. All together the combo was great. I think I would need to come up with a way to get a creamier outer peanut butter shell to truly be able to see these are inside out peanut butter cups. But these turned out more of like a cookie with a creamy chocolate filling. Which is pretty darn good too! Enjoy!

Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups

Thanks to Cakespy!

For the cups:

4 tablespoons butter (softened)

6 tablespoons brown sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

Filling

2 tablespoons milk (I used heavy whipping cream)

1 tablespoon butter (softened)

1 tablespoon peanut butter

2 1/2 teaspoons baking cocoa

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Line 24 mini muffin tins with liners. Set aside.

Cream together butter, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Gradually add the flour in (I did a fourth cup at a time), mixing to incorporate. Mixture is very crumbly. Take about 2/3 of the mixture and press into 12 of the muffin cups, being sure to cover the bottom and sides. This took me longer than I thought it would but I persevered ☺

Take the remaining mixture and press it into the bottom of the rest of the muffin liners (you will later crumble this for topping). Bake for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven. Mine were too puffy at first and didn't look "cup-like" enough so I let them cool for a minute or two and then pressed in the middle, molding them into more of a cup shape. Let cool.

While shells are cooling, mix up the filling ingredients in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds or until melted together.

Stir to incorporate all ingredients.

Spoon this mixture into your peanut butter cups.

Take remaining peanut butter dough (remember, the stuff you cooked to be the topping) and crumble it over the top of each cup, completely covering the filling. I recommend setting the cups in a muffin tin to catch runaway cookie crumbles.

You could also, as Cakespy suggests keep the little cookies whole and use them to top it off, but crumbling worked better for me!

Please excuse the poor lighting and focus on the yumminess...

Happy New Year!