This is a recipe that I've adapted down from a full cake into bite size pieces. Most of the things I bake need to be ready to travel somewhere and I want all of them to get eaten so I don't have to bring any home. The original recipe came from a Betty Crocker cookbook that my mother picked up one day. I have made it several times for various events and it's always a huge hit. However, when I took it to work, I ended up bringing a lot of it home with me and was astonished. A coworker told me, "It's really good, but you need a whole giant glass of milk with it, and our vending machine doesn't have any right now." So I took that to mean "reign it in, girl. If I eat that cake I'm going to fall asleep at my desk." That's when I decided to use the basic principles and create a smaller version that doesn't trigger "your 2:30 feeling." Because it's so rich, when I started scaling down the servings, I skipped right past the regular cupcake size and headed straight for mini-cupcakes.
These do turn out delicious and are a very good solution to the size:richness ratio problem, but they are some of the most time consuming baked goods I've ever bothered to finish, and I must say that I bitch the whole time, so only make these for someone you REALLY love, or someone you really need to impress (in this case, a coworker on my new team).
They are a pain because you bake mini cupcakes, then frost them delicately with peanut butter, then put them in the freezer, then mix up chocolate frosting, then delicately frost them with that (but quickly, before the peanut butter gets warm and mixes with your frosting). No, it's not the most difficult series of steps ever involved in a dessert, but let's just say you really get sick of looking at 60+ tiny cupcakes all mocking you with their tininess.
Recipe:
Ingredients:
Yellow Cake Mix (I prefer Butter Recipe Yellow)
Whatever the cake mix calls for to make it cake
Creamy Peanut Butter (maybe 1/3 cup. Less than required for the original cake)
Tub of chocolate Frosting
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips (Semisweet or milk chocolate both work well)
Directions:
1. Line mini-muffin pans with mini baking cups (probably about 60-70 total)
2. Mix cake batter according to instructions and pour into mini-muffin pans
3. Bake according to instructions (Mine were done in about 12min on 350 w/ our slow oven)
4. Remove from muffin pans and let cool on wire rack for about 10 minutes
5. Put Peanut Butter in a bowl and microwave for about 20 seconds until smooth and spreadable. If not smooth, continue microwaving at 10sec intervals until smooth
6. Spread a small dollop of peanut butter on each mini cupcake being sure to stick to the middle and not go to the edges (going to the edges will make the chocolate step more difficult)
7. Put the mini cupcakes on a baking tray in the freezer for about 15-30 minutes so that the peanut butter sets
8. Mix butter and chocolate chips in a bowl and microwave for 20 seconds, then mix until smooth
9. In a bowl, combine chocolate tub frosting with butter/chip mixture
10. After cupcakes are done in freezer, spread chocolate frosting mixture on top of cupcakes being careful to spread gently without smearing peanut butter around. Be sure to frost edges. You may have a ton left over, but I haven't figured out how to beat this and still use tub frosting.
11. Go have a drink; you've earned it. Damn smug little cupcakes.
-Aly
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