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Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Cookies, Desserts, Food, Sponsored, Sweet
By Emma Chapman

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups (via abeautifulmess.com) Homemade Peanut Butter Cups (via abeautifulmess.com) Hi, friends! Just wanted to share a super easy homemade candy project that features two of my favorite flavors: chocolate and peanut butter! You really can’t beat that combo. 🙂 And I don’t know about you all, but I could not be more excited as spring feels like it is finally upon us. I love any and all warm weather months, so for me this is cause for celebration. All the more reason to throw together some cute homemade treats.

We are excited to be working with ALDI on this project. Not only can you find all the ingredients for these at ALDI, but the prices are super affordable. I also got the flowers in this post from there as well. I love a grocery store that carries flowers too (get your groceries and all your weekly must-haves, plus get a little festive present for yourself—win, win). I also loved seeing how many organic products they carry. Although I must admit, this post is not about all their organic items—it’s about homemade candy. 🙂

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups (via abeautifulmess.com) You can keep these simple by assembling in mini cupcake liners, or you can get fancy with these and create shapes. I used some spring-themed cookie cutters (also from ALDI) to create eggs, flowers, carrots, and a few other fun shapes. So I’ll share how to do that if you want to get fancy with me.

FillingHomemade Peanut Butter Cups, makes 15-20

3 cups SimplyNature organic creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 cups Baker’s Corner confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
1 package (11.5 oz.) Baker’s Corner semi sweet morsels
3 tablespoons Carlini vegetable or canola oil
sprinkles and other edible decorations for the tops

First, in a mixing bowl stir together the peanut butter, sugar, and salt until well incorporated.

Spread fillingLine a baking sheet or cutting board with wax paper and spread the mixture over the surface until it’s about 1/2 inch or slightly less thick and fairly uniform (so areas aren’t way thicker than others). Once you spread it out some (an easy way to do this is to add another piece of wax paper on top of the mixture), roll or press into a thin sheet.

Freeze for at least an hour, longer is OK too. You can leave this overnight if you’re wanting to work on this in stages or time it along with a celebration.

Cookie cutters for the shapesPlace the frozen sheet onto a cutting board and peel back the wax paper. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes, and then remove these shapes to a baking sheet or another cutting board covered with wax paper. If you notice the peanut butter mixture getting too difficult to work with (sticking to the cookie cutters too much), you can either pop it back into the freezer for a little bit, or lightly dust with more confectioners sugar.

Once you have all your shapes cut out, place back in the freezer while you prepare the chocolate.

How to make homemade peanut butter cupsIn a microwave safe bowl, combine the chocolate chips and oil. Microwave on high for 30 seconds, then give it a good stir. Microwave again for 30 seconds, and then stir until smooth. If needed, you can microwave for a few more seconds, but one minute total is what worked well for me.

Now place the peanut butter shapes on a wired cooling rack. Pour and spread the chocolate over the shapes so it runs over the sides and covers the entire shape. If you want the bottoms covered as well, you can dip the shapes, but I found that pouring the chocolate over the topped worked best for me.

While the chocolate is still wet, add sprinkles, mini marshmallows, small candies, or other edible decorations. This is the fun part, so feel free to really go for it!

Peanut Butter Cup recipe (via abeautifulmess.com) Peanut Butter Cup recipe (via abeautifulmess.com) I also decided to use white frosting to outline some of my shapes. There are SO many different ways you could go with decorating these, so feel free to get creative or use whatever you have on hand.

Once the chocolate sets, you are ready to serve and/or eat. These could be wrapped in plastic to be gifted or just set out on a plate at a party. Keep in mind that if they get warm, the chocolate will, as chocolate does, soften and melt. So be sure to store any you don’t consume in a cold spot, like your refrigerator.

Peanut Butter Cup recipe (via abeautifulmess.com) Just a few notes in case you plan to make these at home:

-The above recipe makes anywhere from 15-20 peanut butter ‘cups’ because it depends a great deal on how big or small of cookie cutters you use for these. I used pretty standard, medium sized cookie cutters, and I made 15.

-If you’d like to make less, you can easily cut this recipe in half, or make any size batch you like. Just keep in mind you want twice as much peanut butter as sugar.

-You can use any oil in the chocolate, but I like oils that have lighter flavors so it doesn’t take away from the chocolate. Some good and inexpensive options are vegetable or canola oil. But you can use basically any oil, just keep in mind that the flavor (like olive oil) may come through some.

These are really fun to make and super delicious to eat—enjoy! xo. Emma

Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with the NEW A Beautiful Mess actions. 

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