A Delicious Homemade Peanut Butter Cups Recipe

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Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Once you’ve had these homemade peanut butter cups you’ll never eat store-bought again! They’re simply made with chocolate and nut butter.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups!

Store-bought candy rarely finds its way into our house. It took us a while to rid our systems of the craving for it, but once we started swapping real, dark chocolate bars for our indulgent candy treat, we slowly lost the desire to munch on the classic candy bars.

As easy as it is to refrain from store-bought candy most of the year, each year when Halloween rolls around, there’s that little bit of nostalgia that makes us want to run out and buy a bag or two.

Lost Love for Store-Bought

The thing is, now that we don’t eat candy regularly, one bite of those old, nostalgic treats are really all we need to remind us what FAKE tastes like. Sure, it’s a walk down memory lane, but more and more that goes something like this:  “Remember when we used to think x, y, or z tasted SO good?”

Like the time I ate a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup after not tasting one for a year or two. I was all excited about the flavors I remembered. I was looking forward to an indulgence. But much to my dismay, it just didn’t taste the same. Whether the candy had changed or just my tastes, it just didn’t live up to the sweet, indulgent glory that I remembered.

I knew that if I could make them myself, using REAL ingredients, they could be so much better. Maybe they’d even be better than I remembered!

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups: Ingredients

It only takes two real ingredients to make these homemade peanut butter cups. TWO!

Forget about all the sweeteners, stabilizers, unhealthy fats, and preservatives in store-bought candy. We’re talking REAL chocolate and NATURAL nut butter. That’s it!

With only two ingredients, these homemade peanut butter cups couldn’t be more simple to make!

I use mini baking cups as a mold for my homemade peanut butter cups because I find they freeze up better in their mini form. However, you could make these “regular” size by using standard baking cups.

Peanut Butter, Almond Butter, Sesame Butter

One of the fantastic things about making your own peanut butter cups is that you can use your favorite nut butter.

Love almonds? Fill these with your favorite, natural almond butter.

Allergic to nuts? You can still enjoy “peanut butter” cups by using sesame butter (tahini) or sunflower seed butter.

One Step Further: Homemade Chocolate for Peanut Butter Cups

As if making your own homemade peanut butter cups wasn’t exciting enough, I decided to take things one step further. I’ve made my own chocolate bars before, so I knew it was possible to make these peanut butter cups ENTIRELY from scratch. So, I did.

Coconut oil, cacao powder, and maple syrup come together to create a lightly sweet, seriously dark chocolate with only healthy fats and natural sweeteners.

Can we call these peanut butter cups health food? I don’t see why not!!

The one thing to keep in mind is that coconut oil DOES NOT stay as firm as cocoa butter, so while this chocolate will be very solid when chilled, an hour out of the fridge and it will get quite soft.

So, if you’re using homemade chocolate for your homemade peanut butter cups, keep them in the refrigerator until you are ready to eat/serve them!

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups Recipe

Prep: 1-hour | Yield: 16 mini peanut butter cups

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Place the chocolate in the upper bowl of a double boiler (or place it in a bowl and place the bowl over a saucepan of water). Place water in the bottom of your double boiler and heat the water to boiling. Melt the chocolate in the top portion of your double boiler, stirring often. Turn off the heat, but leave the chocolate on the burner to keep it warm.
  2. Put 1 teaspoon of melted chocolate into the bottom of 16 mini baking liners. Using a spoon, pull some of the melted chocolate part-way up the sides of the liners.
  3. Place liners on a platter and place the platter in the freezer for 5-10 minutes, allowing for the chocolate to set.
  4. Spoon ½ teaspoon of the nut butter into the chocolate cup that you now have in each mini liner. (Make sure to leave a small border around the peanut butter, so the chocolate topping can flow down to the edges.)
  5. Spoon 1 teaspoon of chocolate over the peanut butter.
  6. Freeze the peanut butter cups for 30 minutes to make sure everything is good and solid.
  7. Store the peanut butter cups in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Homemade RAW Dark Chocolate Recipe

Prep: 5 min | Yield: Chocolate for 12 peanut butter cups

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan over low heat.
  2. Remove pan from heat and mix in the cacao powder and maple syrup. Taste the chocolate and adjust the sweetness as desired.

Use this melted chocolate in place of the melted chocolate in the Peanut Butter Cups recipe above.

FINAL NOTE

Remember that peanut butter cups made with homemade chocolate will stay relatively solid for up to 1 hour out of the refrigerator, after that they will begin to soften.

Have you ever made homemade peanut butter cups? If so, how did they turn out?

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About Sarah Ozimek

Sarah is a writer, recipe developer, traveler, gardener, and lover of (almost) all things outdoors. Together with her husband Tim, she writes the blog Curious Cuisiniere where they explore world cuisines and cooking using real ingredients and tried and true methods, the way our ancestors have done for ages. Connect with Sarah on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

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Comments

  1. Avatar photoClaudia says

    I love this recipe! I am going to use it to make choco peanut butter treats for my dog, using carob.

  2. Avatar photoMiTmite9 says

    I have made my own peanut butter cups. The recipe used powdered sugar mixed in with the peanut butter. I used cupcake paper cups as my molds.

    The process was a bit messy, but the result was a lot of fresh-tasting and delicious candy.

    Unfortunately, nearly all commercial white sugar is made using bone char as part of the process. No kidding. I am not sure if “organic” sugar uses bone char or not. So . . .veggies beware.

    • Avatar photoSarah Ozimek says

      Hi MiTmite9. As you can see in our above recipe, we don’t use white sugar or powdered sugar in this recipe. And, the process isn’t particularly messy either. Hopefully you get a chance to give these a try!

  3. Avatar photoAnja says

    I have food allergies due to autoimmune disorders. I’m allergic to anything from the cocoa bean. Can you recommend a healthy swap for chocolate that’s doesn’t taste awful?

    • Avatar photoSarah Ozimek says

      Hi Anja. Unfortunately, I’m not familiar with any good cocoa substitutes. Hopefully someone from our community will have an a suggestion for you.

    • Avatar photoBetsy Jabs says

      Hi Anja,
      Have you used carob? It’s a good substitute that’s not from the cocoa bean, but it does have a different flavor. Something to look into if you haven’t already. 🙂

      • Avatar photoAnja says

        I’ve not tried Carib yet. It’s the only substitute I’ve found so far. I intend to try it eventually. I was wanting to see if there are any other options, but it looks like carob is the only option. A chocolate allergy sure isn’t any fun at all. It just sucks the joy out of life to be denied chocolate.

        Thank you everyone for your help. I appreciate you taking the time to help me.