Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
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This homemade peanut butter cups recipe is super easy and delivers sweet peanut butter dough cups with a hard chocolate topping.
I happened upon this homemade peanut butter cup recipe by accident (or desperation) this summer when my son was going to a pool party and needed to bring a snack to share. My first thought was brownies, then cake, then cookies, and then I went on down the list until I came up with something that would be really good but not make a lot of mess in the kitchen. So I took a standard peanut butter bar recipe and flipped it into peanut butter cups.
I was not prepared for the reaction. Every speck was snatched up and I received text messages and even emails telling me how wonderful the homemade peanut butter cups were. I’ll be darned if it didn’t put a spring in my step! So I decided to bring them to you today in case you might need a little spring in your step, too. Because no matter what, I think you’re pretty wonderful!
So, what do you need to make my easy homemade peanut butter cups? Confectioner’s sugar, creamy peanut butter, brown sugar, vanilla, butter, and chocolate chips. First, we create our peanut butter cup by melting the butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar together. Then we mix in the powdered sugar and vanilla to make a dough. We place this into muffin papers to create our “cups” and then, of course, we need to add melted chocolate on top.
Once they’re set, it’s time to dig into your homemade Reese’s peanut butter cups. I tell ya, you’ll never buy them from the store again!
If you are a chocolate peanut butter lover like me make sure you try these other delicious recipes Peanut Butter Candy, Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls (No Baking Necessary), No Bake Peanut Butter Bars, Frosted Chocolate Peanut Butter Treats, and Peanut Butter Cheesecake Cookie Bars.
Recipe Ingredients
- Confectioner’s sugar
- Creamy peanut butter
- Brown sugar (dark or light)
- Vanilla extract
- Butter (or margarine)
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
Place butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar in a large microwave-safe bowl,
Microwave this for 1 to 2 minutes until everything melts.
You can do this on the stovetop if you prefer.
Stir it until smooth and creamy, preferably with a little piggy spoon.
Add in your vanilla and stir that well.
Add in powdered sugar and stir that up really well, too.
At first, it will seem like it is going to be too dry but keep stirring and it will come together into a dough.
If you find after stirring it that they are still a little dry, you can melt 1/4 cup more peanut butter and add to it. But this is the exact recipe I use and I’ve never had to add more.
All ya need is a little faith, trust, and pixie dust!
Here is our dough.
Now take off pinches and roll them into balls.
Mine are about 1/1.5-inch balls. You can use a cookie dough scoop for even cups.
You can also make smaller ones and make mini peanut butter cups if you like.
Press the ball into the cupcake liner with your fingers like this.
Repeat until all of the peanut butter mixture is used up.
This will make about 24 full-sized peanut butter cups and a gazillion mini-sized ones. I’m estimating the quantity of the minis 😉.
Make the Chocolate Topping
Now, I don’t put chocolate on the bottom, only on the top. It is easier and you get more of that yummy peanut butter taste that way. A lot of folks will try to put chocolate on the bottom and spread it up the sides to make these look store-bought, but we don’t do that in this recipe.
Anyway… pour about 2 cups of chocolate chips into a microwave-safe bowl and nuke that for about a minute.
Stir. Nuke one minute more (or until it all melts), and stir again.
Note: Make sure no water gets into your chocolate. Not even one little drop because it will cause it to clot something terrible.
Stir it up really well and you’re ready to top your peanut butter cups.
Top the peanut butter filling with a good spoonful of chocolate.
Once you have a few topped, go ahead and spread it around.
I start by banging my muffin tin on the table a few times.
Then I use the back of my spoon to spread it the rest of the way.
If you make a circular motion with your spoon it makes the tops pretty.
Place these in the refrigerator when complete, until the chocolate hardens.
This should only take about an hour.
Then you can pop each peanut butter cup out of its cupcake liner for that Reese’s look or serve them as is.
Enjoy your peanut butter cups!
This photo is from my friend Conni at A Good Life Farm.
Storage
- Store them in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge and try and eat them within a week. Ya know this has never been a problem in my household!
- You can also store chocolate peanut butter cups in the freezer for up to 3 months. Thaw them in the fridge overnight or at room temperature before serving.
Recipe Notes
- Because we want a smooth texture, I recommend using creamy or smooth peanut butter, not crunchy peanut butter. I also don’t recommend natural peanut butter for this recipe. However, you can substitute for different nut butter, like creamy almond butter or cashew butter, for a different taste.
- If you want to make authentic peanut butter cups completely covered in chocolate, check out this recipe for helpful directions.
- I’m using semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can use whatever you prefer. This might be dark chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, or even chocolate chunks. You can even use chocolate almond bark.
- If your peanut butter isn’t salted, I recommend adding a pinch of sea salt or kosher salt to the peanut butter mixture. Alternatively, sprinkle some on top of the melted chocolate.
Check out these other peanut butter treats:
Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls (No Baking Necessary)
Frosted Chocolate Peanut Butter Treats
Peanut Butter Cheesecake Cookie Bars
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine
- 1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups peanut butter
- 2.5 cups confectioner's sugar
- 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Line two muffin pans with muffin papers (24 total).
- Place peanut butter, butter, and brown sugar in a large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave until butter and peanut butter are melted (one to two minutes). Time will vary by microwave.1/2 cup butter or margarine, 1/2 cup packed light or dark brown sugar, 2 cups peanut butter
- Remove the bowl from the microwave and use a large spoon to stir all of the ingredients together (except chocolate chips) until they form a ball of dough that leaves the side of the bowl.1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 2.5 cups confectioner's sugar
- Pinch off pieces of dough and roll them into 1.5-inch-sized balls. Place one ball into each muffin paper then pat them into a 9x13 baking dish or muffin tin. Press the peanut butter filling flat into the papers with your fingers.
- Pour chocolate chips into another microwave-safe bowl and microwave at 30-second intervals, stirring after each, until completely melted. Spoon over the top of the peanut butter layer and spread evenly.2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Allow them to cool completely at room temperature until the chocolate hardens again or place them in the refrigerator for faster hardening.
Nutrition
“Never let a bad day make you feel like you have a bad life.”
~Unknown
So EASY…..love it! Got them in the fridge for the grandkids. Gonna “taste” before they get home. Quality control, ya know? lol
Thanks, Christy, for sharing!!!
Quality control is VERY important Kay!! So glad to hear you have that under control.
YUM! Just made these and before anyone gets home I had to eat the 2 ugly ones of course (don’t want people talking bad about me……LOL) Now trying to figure out how to ugly up a couple more. Quick and delicious, thanks Christy!
LOL!!! I LOVE the way you think Pamela!!
Thanks Christy, I will make these for my husband, he will take them to work to share with his co-workers. Our family loves peanut butter and chocolate. I WILL BE COOKING DINNER FROM ONE OF your books. God bless.
That is so sweet of you Elizabeth!! I hope everyone enjoys them!!
I cannot wait to make these for my family!
I hope you get a chance to soon Amy!!
I just made them and my husband loves them! I’m afraid my girls might not get any! Thank you so much!
I am so glad he likes them Amy!!!
Hey, I lived in the fiftues as a small child in the house of a news junkie, all sound ceased when the news was on the radio, the news was discussed by the adults, children sat in the corner and played quietly or listened to the speculation and sometimes graphic talk about what things might be like. That threat became less as the years went by, but you can’t say the cold war is over entirely, yes Regan mittigated it to a very large degree when the wall came down, but Russia is trying to build that back, and Iran has aspirations as well, so while a lot of it has gone, we are not totally home free and we should still worry. But take the good when it shows up, so go to Opryland, and make peanut butter cups and enjoy what we have, because while things can always be worse they can be better too.
Love these Christy! How sinful can you get and still follow the LORD! these will mail great. I can’t wait to make a huge batch of the minis to mail to my daughter to share with her dorm.
I may make a second batch using the Biscoff spread and put in a separate box to mail in case anyone has nut allergies. Which if anyone has nut allergies I bettered not go to the dorm as my daughter has always told me I’m a nut. At least she could laugh through life with a momma that’s a nut.
What a sweet idea Marsha!! You are always so thoughtful!
Love it! We’ve always referred to our family tree as the one producing the mixed nuts. I have two family members with dangerously severe allergies to peanuts and some tree nuts. For years, I’ve made loads of “peanut-free” treats for them at Christmas, so they wouldn’t have to miss out entirely on what others were enjoying. Sesame seed pralines, “pecan-less” pecan pie, peanut-less peanut butter cake, etc. A few years ago, I began making fake “Reese’s cups”, using a similar recipe to the one Christy posted (hers is better than my old recipe), but substituting sunflower seed butter (SunButter) or almond butter (Barney Butter) for the peanut butter. These brands are made in dedicated peanut-free facilities, so there’s no risk of cross-contamination with peanuts. There is also a new (to me, anyway) golden-pea-based “No-Nut Butter” I plan to try out soon. Any of these substitute well, volume-for-volume for the peanut butter in the candies.
I’ve called and tried to get allergy information from the Biskoff folks, without much success. The allergies are too severe to take any chances, so I haven’t tried the Biskoff as a peanut substitute.
Thanks, Christy, for yet another great recipe!
DIANE, I read my Biscoff jar and no where did it mention where it was made in a factory that also makes things made with nuts. The only allergies the jar noted was wheat and soy. The ingredient list did not contain any nut products. I hope this helps in some way.
Marsha – Thanks. You’re a love to take the time to offer feed-back. You deserve an explanation for my paranoia. A childhood experience taught me never to completely trust what the label says without checking further. In the days long before allergy warnings on labels, my brother almost died from eating a couple of plain m & m’s. No nuts or peanuts were listed in the ingredients, so my parents thought they would be safe for him to eat. Turns out, they were (and are, the warning now says) processed on the same machinery that is used to process peanut m & m’s. He had inadvertently gotten a bit of a peanut in his “plain” chocolate candy.
Biskoff is a brand of cookie (and now the delicious spread) based on a Belgian cookie called speculoos (Biskoff used to be imported from Belgium). Some traditional recipes for the cookies contain ground almonds or hazelnuts, and some are nut-free. When Biskoff first appeared in our little backwater, several years ago, I called the number on the label to find out if the cookies contained nuts or were processed on equipment shared with nut ingredients. They didn’t know, and didn’t offer to help me find out. I didn’t re-visit the issue. Your information tells me I should have, because the label information now is more complete. Odd fact side-note: Betty Crocker Butter Pecan cake mix contains NO pecans, peanuts, or other nuts, nor does it contain nut flavorings. Lorann oil-based “nut” flavorings don’t, either. Go figure.
Sound great!
Lol, but the Cold War was in the 1950s. You look great for being in your sixties or seventies!
I’m referring to one of many cold wars as referenced here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
But I’m not too far off from my sixties!