Peanut Butter Cheesecake Brownie Cups

Description

Brownie + peanut butter cheesecake inside of a chocolate cup…Yes I totally just went there.

Supposedly it’s inappropriate to moan while eating, but in my defense, these were so good that I just couldn’t help it.  I’m actually not kidding.  Did you notice that I said “were”?  That’s because they have ALL mysteriously vanished and rumor has it that my treadmill wants to have a two hour talk with me.  Oh boy am I in trouble!  And you will be too if you are crazy enough to go ahead and make these.  Consider yourself warned. 

As much as I dislike prepackaged or boxed food, this recipe actually starts off by using a box of Ghirardelli brownie mix.  I’m sure it would taste pretty delicious using almost any brownie recipe but this box had been sitting in my cupboard for way too long and I was tired of looking at it.  And wow does Ghirardelli make a delicious and easy to prepare brownie.  Here’s what you’ll need:

Brownies

1 Box Ghirardelli double chocolate brownie mix
1 Egg
1/3 Cup of oil
1/4 Cup of water

Prepare the brownies as directed on the box and let them cool in the fridge.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

4oz softened cream cheese
1/2 Cup of peanut butter
1/2 Cup of powdered sugar
1/2 Teaspoon of vanilla extract

Mix all peanut butter cheesecake ingredients together until uniform in color.  It’s technically not a cheesecake because there’s no eggs, but we’re not going to bake it and I like the idea of having that cheesecake flavored goodness without the risk of food poisoning.  With that said, hopefully you will forgive me for luring you here with promises of cheesecake and instead delivering to you this creamy peanut butter goodness.  I personally really like the taste of cream cheese although if you’re more of a peanut butter person, you might want to add more than this recipe calls for.

Chocolate Cup

3 Cups of chocolate chips

I made half of the batch using semi-sweet chocolate chips and the other half using dark chocolate chips.  They both turned out amazingly delicious so use whatever chocolate you prefer.  Melt half of the chocolate using a double broiler…in a minimalist kitchen that means a measuring cup in a pot of boiling water.

Next, line your muffin tins with 18 muffin cups.  The foil muffin cups make the chocolate less likely to stick but paper ones work ok too.  Spoon some melted chocolate into each of the muffin cups.

Using a pastry brush, brush the chocolate about 2/3 of the way up the sides of the muffin cups.

Let the chocolate cups sit in the freezer for a couple of minutes until they set.  Get your cooled brownies out of the fridge and scoop by tablespoon full into your set chocolate cups.

Flatten each brownie a little to fill the bottom of the chocolate cup.  Next, scoop a tablespoon of your peanut butter cheesecake mixture onto the brownies and flatten.

Melt the rest of our chocolate and pour it over the top, being sure to cover all of the chocolate peanut butter goodness.

Let your brownie peanut butter cheesecake cups set in the fridge for a few minutes until the chocolate hardens.

These are so good that I’ve been accused of sprinkling crack on them.  Take one bite and you’ll see why.  And for the record no I do not slip crack into my desserts…they’re just naturally delicious!  Anyways, for my next batch I was thinking about maybe doing a brownie/coconut combination…..hmmm.