Peanut Butter Cups...

I have mixed emotions about sharing this recipe with you and encouraging you to go and make these on your own. Sure the pictures look great, you say, but what you aren't seeing is the disastrous kitchen mess resembling that of a chocolatey Jackson Pollock and the multiple 'smash modes' (my version of a hissy fit) that occurred while making these.  However, this is a blog about the MISadventures of cooking so I guess it is my moral obligation to tell you the tale of these chocolate peanut butter cups.  

My first million dollar idea was to use small confectioners cups.  These cups were so tiny that getting the chocolate into each nook and cranny was very tedious and time consuming. The cups, being small and flimsy, kept slipping out of my hands and every time this happened I let out a disgruntled sigh. After about the fifth time my sighs turned to yelling and muttering obscenities in frustration as chocolate was spraying all over me and the kitchen.  Yet I pressed onward and two T-shirt changes later, which would have been three until I had the bright idea to put on an apron, I was back on track: chocolate cups coated and into the freezer.

Next I mixed up the peanut butter mixture, no problems there. 

Then came the filling: with chocolate cups at the ready, I began piping small amounts of peanut filling into the cups. Annoyingly the seam of the Ziplock piping bag burst, sending a wave of gooey peanut butter down my hands and cascading over my precious little chocolate cups and onto the counter. At this point, it was just too much - more obscenities, yelling, tears of anger starting to squeeze from my eyes (a full on 'smash mode' if there ever was one). Luckily, before I just about dumped the whole plate of cups into the sink, my boyfriend who had been watching this whole production go down swooped in to calm me (this may have been a self serving act on his part to save the chocolate cups and ensure dessert for later).  After a 2 minute breather I was back at it racing to finish up with no further complications and, as you can see, the results turned out quite well.

So if you love chocolate, peanut butter and tedium, this is definitely the recipe for you!

Makes 36-40 peanut butter cups

40 confectioners size baking cups

1 large piping bag or Ziplock bag

3 100g 70% Lindt chocolate bars, broken into pieces

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 cup natual peanut butter

1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp butter, room temperatue

pinch of salt

Seperate baking cups, and arrange on a flat tray, that can be transferred into the freezer.

In a double boiler, melt chocolate and coconut oil and gently stir until smooth. Once melted, keep chocolate in double boiler on very low heat. 

Place small spoonful (~1/2 tsp - 1 tsp) of chocolate into a baking cup, twist and rotate cup until all nooks and crannys of the paper cup have been coated.  Place back on tray and repeat with all baking cups.  Once all cups are coated, place the tray of cups into the freezer for about 10 minutes to set the chocolate.

While cups are chilling, mix peanut butter, icing sugar, butter and pinch of salt in a bowl.  Once mixed, place into piping or Ziplock bag (if using Ziplock push mix into one corner, then cut off the corner of the bag).

Remove cups from freezer, and pipe peanut mixture into the centre of the chocolate cups. Leave some space around the edge of the peanut mixture so that when you fill with chocolate, it will surround the peanut mixture like a moat - doing this will help to build up the width of the side wall.

Once all cups are filled with peanut mixture, spoon over reamining melted chocolate to fill up 'moat' and cover peanut mixture entirely.  Once filled with chocolate, return tray to fridge and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Enjoy! (bonus points if you did it with no kitchen catastrophes)

Note - If you want a more substantial PB cup, small baking papers (think, mini cupcake size) would likely also work well.