Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: The taste is unadulterated peanut butter + chocolate. The best part about making homemade peanut butter cups is that unlike the store-bought kind, they aren’t loaded with sugar and artificial ingredients.
Texture: The tempered chocolate creates a hard, snappy shell for the thick and firm layer of peanut butter to sit.
Ease: Once the chocolate is tempered making the peanut butter cups is easy, just a little messy.
Appearance: Beautiful yet you can tell these are homemade!
Pros: Fun, delicious, and impressive.
Cons: Messy.
Would I make this again? I’ve made these a handful of times.
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This past Wednesday I posted a video tutorial on How to Temper Chocolate. Tempered chocolate is key to making the best homemade peanut butter cups ever, they’re seriously way better than Reese’s. Plus, they’re really not that difficult to make. I actually briefly showed how to make them in my chocolate tempering video. In the video and photographed here I make these peanut butter cups with miniature cupcake liners, but I have also had great success making them with chocolate molds. Either way, they are adorable, impressive, and above all, delicious. These peanut butter cups make a great homemade holiday gift, too.
I strongly recommend using tempered chocolate, but if you need another option simply melt down the one pound of semisweet chocolate and add in 2 tablespoons of coconut oil or shortening. Follow the recipe directions, refrigerating the chocolate in between assembly steps. You will need to store the peanut butter cups in the refrigerator until ready to serve to keep them nice and firm since the chocolate won’t be as stable as tempered chocolate.
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Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
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Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 4 tablespoons butter
- Pinch salt
- 1 cup powdered sugar (more or less depending on preference)
- 1 pound tempered semisweet chocolate
Instructions
- In a small saucepan heat the peanut butter and butter until melted, being careful not to scorch. Remove from heat and add in the salt and sugar, mixing until smooth. Let cool then refrigerate until ready to use (can be made and refrigerated up to 3 days ahead of time).
- If using miniature paper cupcake liners, use a pastry brush to brush the bottom and up the sides of the liners with the tempered chocolate to create a chocolate shell cup. Let sit at room temperature until shiny and hardened. Fill each cup with about a teaspoon of the peanut butter mixture. Pour tempered chocolate over the peanut butter mixture to seal the cup, using a spatula to spread into an even layer. Let the peanut butter cups sit until shiny hardened. Place in the refrigerator to speed up this process.
- If using a chocolate mold instead, generously pour tempered chocolate into the holes of a candy mold to fill each hole completely. Flip the mold upside-down and let the excess chocolate drip back into the bowl with the remaining tempered chocolate so that each mold is thinly coated in chocolate. Flip right-side up and let sit until the chocolate is hardened.
- Scoop a teaspoon of filling (more or less depending on your mold) into each mold. Be absolutely certain that there is no filling sticking up above the surface of the mold. It should be a little less than flush with the mold. Place in the refrigerator so the filling can firm slightly.
- With a spatula, smooth the tempered chocolate over the filled molds, being careful not to disturb the filling. Tilt the mold to allow the excess chocolate to drip off. Let the chocolates sit until hardened before popping out of the molds to serve.
I make a low carb peanut butter cup. 1/4 c each of peanut butter, cocoa, and coconut oil, 9 drops of Sucradrops. In a glass measuring cup put the peanut butter, cocoa and coconut oil. Heat the mixture 10 seconds, just to melt. Stir, add the Sucradrops. Pour into plastic candy mold. Freeze. Pop out, keep in a container in the freezer.
I get Sucradrops online.
I’ve made these before, but not with tempered chocolate. I love your video about how to do that – thank you! If I were to use white chocolate in this recipe, would you recommend reducing the amount of butter or powdered sugar?
I’ve been experimenting with making my own homemade chocolate using coconut oil, honey, cocoa powder and salt. The chocolate taste great, but the resulting chocolates HAVE to be refrigerated. If I tried to temper the coconut oil chocolate, do you think I could use it in this recipe?
That probably won’t work – the process of tempering chocolate is actually the process of pre-crystallizing the cocoa butter, something which you homemade chocolate doesn’t have.
I’d have to say that peanut butter cups are one of my most favorite candies. I love your homemade recipe! I’m really looking forward to making these!
they look delish!
This looks divine.
Homemade is better, I definitely agree. This would be my 2014 to do list. Gotta print this recipe.
How long do these last? 🙂
They should last a while if kept refrigerated, at least a week (if you can resist scarfing them all down before then).