I’ve always looooved peanut butter cups. Before I was vegan or diabetic I was obsessed with Reeses. Chocolate and peanut butter is just the perfect combo, that semi sweet, thick creamy peanut butter centre covered in a coating of delicious chocolate. What’s not to like?
Well unfortunately, Reeses are made with dairy and a lot of sugar. But then I recently discovered Cleo’s vegan peanut butter cups. SO. GOOD. Buuut they also contain a lot of sugar, and also palm oil. So I thought, well, I’m gonna have to make my own vegan peanut butter cups. I did a bit of research and thought they actually are probably quite easy to make, which they are! And thanks to some other bloggers whose recipes I had a little look at (Chocolate Covered Katie , It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken ,From my Bowl)I very quickly realised the secret to make homemade peanut butter cups look cool (well, not really a secret, pretty obvious now that I know actually) – muffin cases!
In order to make mine sugar-free and vegan I had to look for a vegan and sugar-free chocolate to use for the coating. If you’ve seen some of my other recipes like my Guilt-Free Chocolate Truffles you’ll know I’d already found this. For that recipe I used Healtheries 99% sugar free dark chocolate baking bits. Another go to for me is Well Naturally dark chocolate. Both are made with sweetener. For these Peanut Butter Cups I had actually planned to use the Healtheries baking bits but then when I got to the end of the recipe and was adding melted chocolate on top I started running out. Luckily I had a couple of bars of Well Naturally dark chocolate in the pantry. So I melted one of those and that saved the day. Altogether you’ll need about 300g of chocolate.
I’m usually someone who will only eat natural peanut butter, the ones which only contain peanuts and salt. However for this recipe a natural peanut butter is unfortunately just a bit too oily and therefore the peanut butter mixture is a little too runny. For this recipe I used Sanitarium smooth peanut butter as it is made with a stabiliser which thickens the peanut butter making it easier to work with, it also doesn’t contain any added sugar.
The peanut butter part of Reeses peanut butter cups is sweet though isn’t it? It is! And so I added sweetener instead of sugar. I used Natvia.
This is a super easy recipe for peanut butter cups and it takes less than an hour including setting time. When you’re ready to serve them, simply take them out of the muffin cases. They are totally fine when not left in the fridge and won’t melt, unless of course you leave them in the sun. The peanut butter centre goes slightly softer than when they’re eaten straight from the fridge. I actually prefer them this way.
I hope you love this recipe for homemade vegan peanut butter cups as much as I do! Bit of a warning: these are addictive.
Ingredients
Instructions
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In a bowl, mix together peanut butter, sweetener and salt then set aside.
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Melt the chocolate. The best way to do this is using a double boiler to prevent the chocolate from burning or seizing up. If you don’t have a double boiler, you can do what I do and put some water in a small pot, bring to a simmer and then place a bowl on top of the pot which is big enough to kind of just sit at the top of the pot without touching the water, the add your chocolate to the bowl. You could also use a microwave, if you do this only put it in the microwave for short increments at a time at a lower power setting if possible.
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Lay out 14 muffin cases and put a couple of small spoonfuls of melted chocolate into the bottom of each. Then put a blob of the peanut butter mixture (about 1 tsp) on top of the chocolate, sort smooth out the top of the peanut butter if you can but also try to leave a slight gap between the peanut butter and the muffin case. Top with another spoonful of melted chocolate so that the peanut butter is covered.
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Put into the fridge for about half an hour until set. When ready to serve, remove from muffin cases.
Notes
These are best kept in the fridge until about an hour before serving. They can be left at room temperature for a few hours or even overnight without melting as long as they aren't left in the sun.
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