Peanut Butter Cup Tassies

When you’ve been making a different type of cookie every Friday since August of 2008, it can be a little hard to come up with something new. I try to vary the types of cookies I make: bar cookie one week, drop cookie the next, something chocolatey and indulgent, something spiced the next. I hadn’t made any cookies in a mini muffin cup in a while, and I particularly like those. They always turn out looking great with little extra effort.

The inspiration for these cookies had a filling of caramel, but I opted to bake up the peanut butter cup cookie dough without anything additional. The dough was rather sticky, and I just couldn’t figure out how I was going to press the dough up the sides of the muffin cups without making a big mess. It’s been a busy week at work and I just didn’t want to deal with that. I figured I’d be fine, and these turned out very nicely.

These are also super quick to make. I think chopping up the Reese’s cups took the longest. Since I have three mini muffin pans (well, four actually) I could bake them all at the same time. Start to finish, these took about 30 minutes. Now they do look a little plain, but they are very tasty. The brown sugar flavor is lovely, then you get a piece of Reese’s peanut butter cup and that’s great.

Peanut Butter Cup Tassies

2¼ cups flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

8 ounces mini Reese’s cups, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray three mini muffin pans with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until light. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, beating just until combined. Stir in the chopped Reese’s cups with a spatula.

Spoon about 1 tablespoon of dough into each mini muffin cup. With lightly floured hands, lightly press the dough evenly in the cup.

Bake for 9-12 minutes, until lightly browned along the edges. Allow the cookies to cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

Recipe inspired by Will Cook for Smiles