Wanker Chef: Homemade peanut butter cups!

On Friday I was feeling strangely productive. I have become somewhat addicted to being really busy and now I can't seem to wind down. There is no doubt it is taking me a little while to get back to normal after exams. I keep waking up trying to remember what I should be studying... 

On Friday I ran errands, did a very long session at the gym, had lunch and a long walk while avoiding the cleaners. Once I got back in the house, I couldn't bring myself to sit still, so I did some cooking. 


I made homemade peanut butter cups because I love them and thought they couldn't be too hard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Reese's-PB-Cups-Wrapper-Small.jpg

I've had a few requests for the recipe so I thought I would share it here! However, since cooking  isn't a specialty of mine I don't anticipate this becoming a regular segment.


Homemade Peanut Butter Cups!

This recipe is roughly based around ones I read on  http://www.joyofbaking.com/candy/PeanutButterCups.html and  http://www.sweetestkitchen.com/2009/04/homemade-peanut-butter-cups/#.T-XBvbUe4_c. 

Ingredients:

Cooking chocolate (I used milk, 1 big bag - adjust to your preference / desired quantity) 
Kraft whipped peanut butter - 1/2 a jar
Icing sugar - 1 bag
Margarine - 1 tablespoon
Canola oil
Mini muffin tin/ patty pans

Method:

I used a mini muffin tin as a mould and it worked really well. Before you start, grease it really lightly with margarine. You could use foil patty pans instead if you don't have a mini muffin tin.

Scoop half a jar of whipped peanut butter into a mixing bowl.

You can use ordinary peanut butter but it is tougher to mix. Kraft make a "whipped" variety (what drugs were the product development  department on when this came into fruition?) the mousse-like texture works really well.

Add icing sugar, sifting in about 2 table spoons at a time, keep adding until the peanut butter is as sweet as you want it. Mix through with a wooden spoon until the mixture is doughy (it's tough work, my arm got really sore!). 

The icing sugar and peanut butter dough

Melt your cooking chocolate. You could do it on the stove but I did it in the microwave, stopping every 30 seconds to stir. If you are feeling particularly clever, you can melt through a teaspoons of the peanut butter mix to the chocolate to give it a hint of peanut buttery deliciousness. 


Once the chocolate is melted, add a little dash of oil (say a teaspoon full) and stir through. The chocolate needs to pour quite easily, but shouldn't be too runny. 

Next, fill the bottom half of your patty pans/ tins with chocolate to just under halfway. Put the pans/ tins in the fridge until the chocolate is half set (you should be able to put a deep thumb print in the chocolate). This will only take a few minutes.

Once you've got the tin out of the fridge, roll the peanut butter mixture into little balls and place them on the chocolate bases. Make sure the peanut butter mixture does not touch the sides of the tin if you want it to be fully encased by chocolate.

Finally, cover with melted chocolate and put in the fridge to set (or the freezer if you're impatient!). Mine only took about 20 minutes to set completely but that will depend on the size of your peanut butter cups and the temperature in your fridge/freezer.


Once they have set, turn the little beauties out of the tin. This might take a little bit of bashing... then, get nomming! 

Om nom nom!

I thought the finished product turned out tasting slightly better than the commercially available ones. I think this is because you can adjust the sweetness of the peanut butter filling and the oil content of the chocolate to your taste preference. I haven't included specific measurements for the ingredients,I surveyed by eye based on how many I PBCs I wanted. The only thing I would say is unless you are feeding an army, don't use more than 1/2 the jar of peanut butter. 

Give them a go and let me know how they turned out!