Why hello blogging world, it's been a long time! As usual, my main excuse for neglecting my beautiful little blog is because of school. It's just hard when you have so much to do and so little time to do it (and when you want to spend your extra hours watching tv rather than cooking, washing dishes, taking pictures and then writing about it). I'm currently sitting at my school library, with a ton of things to do! But I just can't stop thinking about the yummy, melt-in-your-mouth treats I made last night and spent all morning photographing! (I got a new macro lens, but haven't figured out how to use it. I also found a new and improved place to take pictures... yay!)
Last night my husband and I saw a commercial for Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups and instantly we both wanted them! oh the power of good marketing. However, the power was not strong enough, since we were too lazy to drive to the store to pick some up. Instead, we decided that we I would make them! They were really easy to make, only took about 15 minutes (plus an hour to cool down and harden up). I also decided to make them all pretty and cute with Valentine's Day sprinkles. Aren't they adorable?!
These yummy peanut butter cups would make a great gift for Valentine's Day, whether it's for your valentine or your parents, or even a classroom full of snotty little elementary kids (just kidding...about the snotty part). You can make them a few days in advance, which is great if you're going to be busy prepping for V-Day and won't have time to bake or cook.
Another fun thing about these is that you can totally personalize them :) you can use whatever types of sprinkles (or no sprinkles) and different colored wrappers. You can also chose which chocolate you want to use. I used a mix of both milk and dark chocolate, but you can do either or and they would still taste amazing. One more thing, if you can see in the picture below, the peanut butter filling looks a little funky. That's because I used a piping bag and piped it on melted chocolate, so some of it fell and looks funny (still tastes good). I thought using a piping bag would be easier, however you don't need to. You are very welcome to just use a teaspoon and your clean hands (just make sure you get an even amount into each cup).
Before I let you go, I have two things to note. First, they need to be in the fridge until you're ready to serve them (or eat them). Because there is peanut butter mixed in with the chocolate, they get very melty very fast. And second, the recipe I used made slightly more chocolate than I could use. If you use large muffin cups, you won't have this problem. However, I used mini muffin cups and so I wasn't able to add as much chocolate and had some left over! It wasn't a problem though because I just used that chocolatey goodness to make chocolately oat balls. You literally just take uncooked oats (I used quick cooking/instant) and you add them to the melted chocolate/peanut butter and mix and roll into little balls. They are like a healthier version of peanut butter cups ;)
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
Recipe adapted from tasteofhome.com
Ingredients
- 1 cup natural* creamy peanut butter, divided
- 1 ½ Tbsp butter, softened
- ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 12 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
- 6 oz milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
- Sprinkles, optional
Directions
- In a small bowl, mix ½ cup peanut butter, butter, confectioners’ sugar and salt until smooth; set aside
- Over a double boiler, melt the chocolate. Add in peanut butter and stir until smooth. Let cool for a few minutes.
- Drop teaspoonfuls of chocolate mixture into paper-lined mini muffin cups. Top with a teaspoonful of peanut butter mixture**. Top with another teaspoon of chocolate mixture.
- Decorate with sprinkles if desired. Refrigerate until set.
*I prefer natural because it has no sugar, making the PB cups slightly less sweet
**I used a piping bag
**I used a piping bag
Yield:
2 dozen mini peanut butter cups (may be more, depending on how much chocolate and peanut butter you use)
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