Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

One of my favorite candies growing up were Reese's peanut butter cups. So much so, that I bought a Reese's sweatshirt at Hershey Park when I was a teenager. I wanted to recreate this special (not Paleo) treat with some of the better ingredients we normally have in our pantry. These were super tasty, and just as good as the real thing!

20 minutes

8 minutes

Difficulty

Show nutritional information

This is our estimate based on online research.
Calories:	102
Fat:	8 g
Carbohydrates:	10 g
Protein:	2 g
Calculated per serving.

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1/2 cup 1/2 cup 1/2 cup Chocolate Chips, Dark
2 tsp 2 tsp 2 tsp Palm Oil Shortening, Organic [*Spectrum Brand, sustainably sourced]
2 Tbsp 2 Tbsp 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter, Salted, Or your choice of nut butter
1/2 tsp 1/2 tsp 1/2 tsp Sea Salt, A chunky finishing salt, like our French Grey Sea Salt is a good choice

Process

Note, these instructions are written assuming the standard serving size, since you have modified the number of servings, these steps may need to be modified for best results

Start by melting the chocolate chips and palm shortening over medium-low heat. Stir frequently to prevent burning.
Place mini muffin liners in a mini muffin pan. You can do this with full size muffin papers, but you'll just get 2-3 candies instead of 8.
Spoon a little bit of chocolate into the bottom of the muffin paper. Push around and up the sides a little bit with your spoon. This is important, because it helps "seal in" the peanut butter.
Place in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to harden. While that's going on, get your peanut butter ready.
Spoon a little bit of peanut butter over the chocolate bottoms. Flatten it out but not so much as to touch the sides of the muffin papers. You want a thin disc of peanut butter.
Drizzle a little bit of chocolate over the peanut butter, enough to cover the top and fill in the sides, but not much more. Refrigerate for 1-2 minutes to slightly cool the chocolate but not enough to make it harden. Take it back out and sprinkle sea salt on the top. The trick is to cool down the chocolate enough that the sea salt doesn't dissolve, but is still warm enough that the salt sticks to the top.
Place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set. Enjoy whenever!

Notes

If you can't do peanut butter, you can definitely do some other nut butter. Justin's makes an amazing chocolate hazelnut butter (sort of like Nutella) which would be great in these. You can also make caramel for the centers too! And if none of those sound good, you could try putting some sort of jam or fruit filling in the middle.