Chocolate peanut butter cups

Yup, that is so typical me.. When I am busy, I function great.. As soon as I slow down- I fall sick! And so I am now lying in my bed, with a cup of tea and a laptop.. and in lack of (active) activities, here I am with the new post.


The last weekend has been interesting and active. I had two orders from two friends.. but about that some other time. After finishing those orders, I decided to treat myself with something. And immediately after thinking about it, I had yet another wonderful, fun and jolly package arriving to my address.. this time from the USA.


A box of approximately 1kg full of- CANDY!! Tootsie rolls, Jolly Ranchers, Smarties, Peanut butter M&Ms, Reese`s peanut butter cups.. So many of them which were on my "to try" list, but since now I had no way of reaching them. And out of them all, Reese`s PB cups on the top of my list..
I adore Peanut butter and have been wanting to try and make it on my own for a long time now. I suddenly remembered a "funny" post I recently read on  a blog I follow , which seemed a bit on the crazier side. A husband and wife were talking about peanut butter cups they had gotten as a Christmas gift to their DOGS! .. because they allegedly love peanut butter.. (which was followed with about 20 photos of their dogs eating them).

Okay, lets erase this photo out of our heads for right now and return to the right direction.
Reese's PBC were the first on my list to try, out of the whole package.. but there were only 4 of them in there.. (and one went to my my friend for testing.. so that is already 3)
1. one- I ate immediately, automatically, with-the-speed-of-light right away
2. one- I left for the day when I decide to create a remake of it (for testing)
3. one - got a museum status- Look, but do not touch!




But yesterday, I have finally decided to create this delicious sweet bite. And my conclusion stands- the fourth museum status piece is totally replaceable with the homemade thing!


In case you are willing to spend a few hours over these sweets, just follow these instructions and enjoy. The only thing that can come out of it is you surprising yourself with how good of a cook you are. :) And you might surprise the rest around you as well. I became surprised too, when I opened up my freshly built cups and have seen this.. (ahh, peanut-butter love)



 So the ingredients for the filling- the peanut butter are:

Peanuts (salty, pre-roasted) (two handfuls)
Caster sugar (1 Tbs)
Butter (1 Tbs)
Petit beurre cookies (3-4 cookies)

 Wipe your peanuts off from excessive salt and blend them together with the rest of the ingredients (I use the stick blender). Dont worry about not getting the smooth consistency. In fact, the rough, lumpy one, with the remaining tiny pieces of cookies will be far more interesting and tastier to eat inside of the smooth chocolate.
When the ingredients are well blended together, form a sausage-like line out of it on the plastic foil and roll it in. Put the "sausage" in the freezer for about half an hour to harden, because that will make it easier to handle afterwards.



 For the next step, you will need about 300g chocolate (for cooking, milk, dark.. doesnt matter, as long as it has no filling in it), a paintbrush and cups for mini cupcakes. I used the silicone cups, but you can just as well use the paper cases (but in that case, put 2-3 together, to make them harder and more stable).

Melt the chocolate with the tempering technique and use it to cover the mini cupcake cases/molds (from the inside). I used 20 mini cupcake silicone cups, but if you are using smaller ones, you will nee at least 30.  Let the chocolate harden and repeat the procedure until you get about 1,5- 2mm thickness of the chocolate layer.



You can put the chocolate cups in the freezer for 15min to harden, and than take them out, just as well as the peanut butter "sausage". Fill the cups with scoops or slices of the sausage.



...and than cover each of the cups with molten chocolate (not hot), all the way to the top. Return the filled cups in the freezer for an additional 15min to chill. 



And that is all folks! Reese`s PB cups cannot even compare to the homemade fresh pralines filled with delicious PB filling. In the case you wish to give them out as a gift to your friends (or someone special), just wrap them up in the pieces of aluminium foil.



 And could there ever be anyone who doesnt like a homemade chocolatey gift? Now honestly??