Best Practice at cutting butter and sugar in Peanut Butter balls

Question

Something I have been making recently is brownie cupcakes (much the same as the molten cakes without the fudge). Using a standard box of dark chocolate brownies, I pour the ingredients, post-whisk, in a cupcake pan.

I came up with an idea to have peanut butter balls inside of these cakes.

The typical peanut butter ball calls for peanut butter, sugar, and butter then refrigeration.

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Now the issue arises:

• How do I roll these butter balls while cutting down on sugar and butter (are there substitutes)?

There is a part 2 to this question, here.

Answer 1

I like peanut butter, but the thing with using neat peanut butter in recipes is that it can be very cloying and weld your mouth shut. Mixing peanut butter with butter helps loosen it up a bit, the sugar is there to add flavor back and keep it sweet as butter is a savory, and not a sweet flavor. Peanut butter will roll in balls just fine without any extras, they are just there to improve the eating experience.

Having a big ball of peanut butter in the center of a cupcake is problematic because cupcake batter is fairly slack, however brownie batter is thicker so I it's less likely to run out the bottom.

Freezing the peanut butter is a good thought, however it is likely to keep the center from cooking - the outside of the brownie will be done but the center will be very underdone which is probably not what you are looking for. I'd suggest trying the balls at refrigerator temperature first.