Bake a Surprise!

Last year for my birthday, Scott's parents gave me a giant cupcake mold (you may remember the New Year's and baby shower cakes).  This year, they picked out another fun piece of bakeware--a cupcake surprise pan!  (I feel like surprises require exclamation points!)

The pan looks like a basic muffin pan, but each space has a small post inside.  All you have to do is put a bit of batter in each cup, slide the "surprise" ingredient onto the post, and top it off with the remaining mix.  Bake, share, surprise, and enjoy.

So far, I've tried brownies with Reese's peanut butter cups baked inside on two occasions--once for my poetry class and another time to share with friends.

The instructions also suggested savory cornbread muffins with a surprise filling of cheese or peppers baked in the center, and I've seen ideas online for cupcakes with fruit, marshmallows, candy bars or junior mints inside. 

All of the possibilities sound delicious to me... And what's really great--these treats are very easy to make but still have that fun, little "wow" factor.