Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

A double dose of peanut butter and chocolate, these are the cookie-tray favorite everyone fights over. Soft peanut butter cookie dough bakes up in a mini muffin tin, and the second they leave the oven, a whole mini peanut butter cup gets pressed into each warm cookie.

The dough leans on both white and brown sugar, the brown keeping the cookies chewy and tender rather than crisp.

That timing is the whole trick. Press the cup in while the cookie is still hot and it softens just enough to settle into the center and meld with the dough, then sets into a fudgy, melt-in-the-middle core as it cools.

The mini muffin pan does the shaping, hugging each ball into a neat little cup that cradles the candy. Soft, rich, and reliably crowd-pleasing, they come together fast and look like you fussed far more than you did.

Pro Tips

• Press the peanut butter cup in the instant the cookies come out of the oven, while they’re still hot and soft. Wait too long and the cookie firms up and cracks instead of cradling the cup.
• Cool the cookies completely in the pan before removing them. The melted peanut butter cup needs time to set, or it’ll smear.
• Unwrap all the peanut butter cups before the cookies go in so you can work fast in that brief hot window.
• Don’t overbake. Eight minutes is enough; the cookies finish setting in the warm pan.

Variations

• Use mini Rolos, chocolate kisses, or chocolate caramel cups in place of the peanut butter cups.
• Roll the dough balls in granulated sugar before baking for a little sparkle and crackle.