Gooey Butter CUPcakes!

Ok I'm jumping onto the gooey-butter-cake bandwagon and
I'm kind of obsessed. Since the last gooey butter cake I made was such a success, I decided to try Paula Deen's famous recipe. There are hundreds of different variations that can be done to the basic backbone recipe. The recipe uses a box cake as a "crust" that turns out being a soft cake layer, and then is covered in gooey topping that consists of cream cheese, powdered sugar and of course, butter.

This version was a chocolate peanut butter combo gooey butter cake. It's best to bake the cake in a 9x12 glass pyrex dish but since I only had an 8x8 pyrex, I put dollops of the extra crust and extra gooey topping into cupcake liners and made mini cakes. I baked the cupcakes for about 18 minutes (until edges are set and middle is still jiggly and gooey looking) and the 8x8 cake for 40 minutes.

I absolutely LOVE the gooey butter cupcakes because it makes this recipe so much easier to share with friends and family! No more cutting up messy squares of cake when everyone can have their own individual cake with their own individual crunchy, sweet edges and warm gooey center. And they are cuter. These cupcakes can be made with any combo of cake mix and gooey butter topping...any at all....ooohh the calorific possibilities!!!

Paula Deen's Gooey Butter Cake (Chocolate Peanut Butter variation!)

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 18 1/4-ounce chocolate cake mix
1 egg
1/2 c (1 stick) butter, melted

Filling:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
1/2 c (1 stick) butter, melted

1 16-ounce box powdered sugar

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the cake mix, egg, and butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the 3/4 mixture into the bottom of an 8x8 inch pan. Divide the rest of the mixture among 6 cupcake liners and pat down into mini crusts.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, peanut butter, butter and beat together.

Next, add the powdered sugar and mix well. Spread 3/4 of the mixture over cake batter in 8x8 inch pan and divide the rest among the 6 cupcake liners. Bake cupcakes for 15-18 minutes and 8x8 inch cake for 40-45 minutes. Make sure not to over bake as the center should be a little gooey.