Sweetest Day: Peanut Butter Cups
Posted October 18th, 2009 by Kimberly DowdWM and I try to celebrate Sweetest Day because it’s so quaint and obscure. The problem is that it’s so obscure that we usually don’t remember until Sweetest Day itself.
Yesterday I found a recipe online for homemade peanut butter cups, and I thought I’d give it a whirl since I had all the ingredients on hand.
Mixing the inside parts was easy enough – I didn’t even have to break out the mixer. The chocolate was more difficult. I used a bag of semi-sweet morsels and melted them using a double-boiler. Chocolate is a pain. If you melt it too quickly, it can seize up. So patience is the trick. Patience and a bit of vegetable oil to make it more liquid.
Why, yes, that is a Christmas-themed candy cup. Sweetest Day tradition. Okay, I'm lying.
Once the filling was done chilling, I rolled them into little balls and poured the chocolate over top. I THINK it was supposed to go all the way around the peanut butter, but mine seemed to glorp on top and stay there.
I don't like to call it ugly. I prefer artisan.
The only other complaint (of mine, WM loves them) is that the chocolate melts super fast on your fingers when you hold the candy.
Notes for next time:
- Make the peanut butter balls smaller to give the chocolate a fighting chance to cover them.
- See if I can find chocolate that melts better, but doesn’t melt so quickly at room temperature, if that makes any sense at all.
3 Responses to “Sweetest Day: Peanut Butter Cups”
October 19th, 2009 at 7:55 am
Hi Kim,
The best candy making chocolate I know of is the melts that you buy at AC Moore or Michael’s; don’t even need the double boiler, you can do it in the microwave and it actually works.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Good job on the PB cups. A couple tips for next time. Instead of using veg. oil in the chocolate use butter. It gives the chocolate a better taste plus it helps keep the chocolate from getting gloopy. Second pour a little of the chocolate into the cups first, let cool, then add the peanut butter balls, then the chocolate on top for more even coating.
When looking for a different chocolate look for one with a high fat content because the higher the fat content the easier it is to melt and not seperate. But still no matter what you still have to melt it slowly. If it does seperate just add a little butter and it should pull back together.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Hi Janet & John! Thanks for the tips! I’m definitely going to try these again because they are really, REALLY good – a LOT more substantial than store brand.
I think it’s funny that every recipe I print from the Internet ends up scrawled with tips I get from other people in order to make them better. I have a recipe for buttercream frosting that’s just a vague shadow of what I originally printed out!