Peanut Butter Cups

Peanut Butter Cups

I love peanut butter - but only the kind from the jar. Peanut butter cereal, peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter pop-tarts, they're not for me. A Reese's here and there is alright. But even reese's don't have anything on homemade peanut butter cups. Only problem? They are rather labor intensive, so set aside a few hours if your going to commit to the project.

Makes 36 mini Peanut Butter Cups

1 bag chocolate chips - spring for non-generic - something without palm oil for better melting like Ghirardelli

1 c. peanut butter

4 TBS butter, melted

1/2 c. + more powdered/confectioner's sugar

1/2 c. chex cereal, crushed (or whatever - you could use other kinds of cereal, graham crackers, rice krispies)

mini silicone baking cups or mini muffin pan (or you can make fewer regular sized in muffin cups or a muffin pan)

I got two new toys I was excited to try out: mini silicone baking cups and a bread proofer. If that's not a recipe for peanut butter cups I don't know what is. Now, you don't actually need either of those to make these but it did make my experience easier.  The silicone cups make it easy to get your peanut butter cups out of the mold since they peel right off. Although I would suggest them highly for this purpose, I've read mixed reviews on doing actual baking with them.

Melt/warm your peanut butter and butter together, stir until smooth. Add crushed cereal and powdered sugar to your desired thickness.

Scoop ~ 1 1/2 tsp of peanut butter mixture and press into round discs. Refrigerate.

Melt chocolate. This is where the bread proofer comes in, for me - because I royally suck at melting chocolate by the traditional method and we don't own a microwave (much to Ethan's dismay). Its slow (about 45 minutes), but atleast I know for certain that I won't end up with an unusable, brown ball of concrete.

Once your chocolate has melted, coat the bottoms and sides of your baking cups with melted chocolate using the back of a spoon or pastry brush. Drop a single peanut butter disc into your cup and cover with more melted chocolate.

Refrigerate at least 30 minutes until chocolate sets and cups are easily peeled away from chocolate.

You may have to do several batches, which is why this can be time consuming. I only have 12 silicone cups, so I have to do 3 cycles of melting and cooling to make 3 dozen cups.