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dark chocolate peanut butter cups

peanut butter cups

i don’t want to brag, but my college roommates were pretty lucky. even before i started baking, my mom would send care packages stocked with brownies, chocolate chip cookies, candy and juice boxes. that isn’t to say i wasn’t completely lucky myself.

peanut butter cups

i had one roommate whose mother worked for a very popular candy company (whose name shall remain nameless). she actually worked her way up from taste tester. her care packages were unlike any other – instead of candy bars, we got entire candy displays. want a great way to make some new friends? let them in on the secret that you have 200 score bars just waiting to be eaten. did i just give away what company she works for? whoops.

peanut butter cups

we got a lot of great treats, including mystery candies in silver packages marked “prototype.” by far the best thing we had, though, were dark chocolate reese’s cups. there’s a fact you should know at this point: chocolate and peanut butter are the greatest combination to have ever happened. now that that’s out of the way, you can know this: dark chocolate and peanut butter is the most decadent combination to have ever happened.

peanut butter cups

i believe reese’s sold these for a very limited time, but i never actually saw them in stores. for years, i’ve been craving them, hoping they would make a triumphant return, but it looks like i’ll have to take things into my own hands. the recipe is dead simple and the finished cups will basically knock you on your butt. making your own candy sounds like a daunting task, but once you master these, soon you’ll be making up batches for your friends and family, who will shower you with gifts and admiration. hey, you deserve it.

peanut butter cups

dark chocolate peanut butter cups
makes 12-16 mini peanut butter cups.

12 oz bittersweet chocolate (60-70% cocoa)
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup crushed graham crackers

1. in a bowl, mix together the peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar and graham crackers. set aside.

2. in a double boiler, carefully melt the chocolate  (set a metal bowl on top of a saucepan with boiling water). alternatively, you can microwave the chocolate in short bursts.

3. using a pastry brush or a clean paintbrush, brush the melted chocolate on the bottom and sides of mini cupcake liners. it’s helpful to stack some the liners together to give more support. when in doubt, add more chocolate, since this will be the base for your candy. place the cupcake liners on a plate or in a cupcake tin and place in the freezer for 10 minutes.

4. remove the liners from the freezer, and place about one teaspoon of the peanut butter mixture in each cup. press down a bit with a spoon to spread. spoon more melted chocolate on top of each cup.

5. place the peanut butter cups back in the freezer for another 15 minutes to set. eat cold or let warm to room temperature before serving.

91 replies on “dark chocolate peanut butter cups”

I wonder if using silicone baking cups would make it easier to brush the chocolate in… have you ever tried using them? I don’t do a ton of cupcake style baking (I’m more of a cookies or layer cake kind of gal) so I don’t own any.

I remember seeing them in stores. It was at the same time that they were auditioning the white chocolate peanut butter cups. I bought one of each and tried them both. To this day I have no clue how the white chocolate variety was kept, but the dark was thrown out. Huh?

Those look DELICIOUS! I, too, remember the white chocolate ones coming out… even tried them, though I much prefer dark chocolate over any other kind.

Quick question, though, if I use, let’s say milk chocolate… would it be advisable, you think, to lessen the amount of confectioner’s sugar in the peanut butter filling?

These look great, pete! I make vegan pb cups for my roommates all the time. I use the silicon cupcake “papers” for them, and pat the peanut butter into little discs so they’re pretty. (I generally don’t like silicone, but for I don’t mind for these since I’m not actually baking in them and heating them up significantly.)

Really vegan ones. Are you retarded? They are pb cups. Now I know why I am not a vegan because my brain really would shrink.

Vegans do not eat animal products. Chocolate that has dairy product in it is therefore not vegan. Hence they must use vegan chocolate that does not have milk product additives.

Do know what you are talking about before you insult people.

Um, there is no dairy in the dark chocolate called-for in this recipe.

Perhaps you should check your facts before you go posting them.

mspw I don’t think you had to be so rude about it in the first place.

And those peanut butter cups look absolutely delectable.

These certainly do look very delicious. Just one quick question Pete – I live in Australia, and I don’t know what graham crackers are. Are they a sweet biscuit or a cracker and cheese type of cracker?

Love your work!

graham crackers are more of a sweet biscuit. if you don’t have any one hand, you can go without – they mainly add a little bit of texture to the peanut butter mixture. have fun!

By Post Author

translation from US to UK/Austral/SAf/etc:
graham crackers = digestive biscuits.

Pete! Go to Canada, you can still get Reese’s peanut butter cups. We Canadians know a good thing when we see one.

We have them in Australia in specialty shops for chocolate and nuts etc.

They’re fairly common now, I guess. My brother and I were hooked by their amazing taste when we went to America in 1999.

OMG!! If I could eat nothing else in the world but peanut butter cups, I would be happy- and with dark chocolate! I’ve tried a variety of different recipes for PBC – this sounds like a winner. The pics are so tempting! Thanks!

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups have to be my favorite candy ever. And with dark chocolate…I can only imagine how yummy they are! I am definitely going to try these.

Love the photos of food. I made the peanut butter cups and used natural peanut butter with no salt or sugar added. I did add salt (3/4 tsp for a generous 1/3 C peanut butter) I did not add any additional sugar. Also I did not have graham crackers so I did not add those either. Pretty tasty!

Have been following your recipes for a while now, but you just handed me the perfect treat for my best friend for her b-day. She loves peanutbuttercups per se, but since we live in Austria, we cannot get them. I used to bring her some from vacation. She always said, she would like them even more with dark chocolate. So voilá, I will follow your footsteps!!
thanks!!!
Isa

I’m pretty sure that Reese Cups are my favorite candy so these automatically look good in my opinion. I’m actually rather curious to see how the dark chocolate makes it taste..

Yay! I love making homemade reeses. Here are some ideas to make them even easier to make courtesy of my friend meagan.

If you don’t like washing dishes like me you can avoid the double burner. You can put chocolate chips, or broken up chocolate pieces from a bar into paper cupcake liners on a baking sheet or in cupcake tins. Then just put them in the oven at 200 degrees or so for about 3-5 mins until chips get all melty. Then take out the cookie sheet and give each cup a stir with a knife or spoon to smooth them out to cover the whole bottom of the cupcake liner (doesnt have to be perfect no one will see it). then add the pb mixture made into flattened patties and more chips for the top layer. Remelt top layer in the oven and smooth melted chips over with a knife, you can even make a pretty swirly. Also if you don’t want to use graham crackers you can make a pb mixture with 1 part pb, 1 part confectioners sugar and salt and vanilla extract to taste. (using this method with out the paintbrush sometimes results in a streak of pb being visible on the side view but I think it looks cool that way)
: ) happy baking

Are you kidding me? I can make my own? You deserve a medal… and possibly a boycott of all your posts. I can’t take this much sugary goodness within such easy reach. Change this place over to Pete Steams or something. My scale would appreciate it.

Thanks Pete! These came out SO yummy! And for my first candy making experience–so easy! The only change we’ll make next time is doubling the PB mixture. The only liners we found were a bit bigger, so there was minimal PB in each. But whatever, they were still amazing! Thanks for sharing.

I made a test batch with the dark chocolate and found it was too dark for my taste. When I made them for a baby shower I switched to milk chocolate. We also heated the peanut butter mixture and that made it easy to put into a zip lock bag and squeeze into the chocolate. So good! I can’t believe these are this easy – thanks Pete!

Hi, these look so yummy! I am just wondering what Graham crackers are as we dont’ have these in my country and I am trying to figure out what a substitute is. Thanks

To: @kazzles

I just made these and crumbled up digestive biscuits make a great substitute for graham crackers.

Like an earlier poster, I would up the amount of peanut butter mixture as there wasn’t enough.

Tuccelli makes a great Jumbo Gourmet Peanut Butter cup. All of their products are hand made to order. They also make a great peppermint pattie.

Hey Pete and Everyone,

I made these yesterday and they are delicious but very, very messy – the chocolate melts on your fingers instantaneously. I used Lindt’s Excellence that has 70% cocoa and it melted with no problem on a double-boiler and set easily in the freezer. But it’s hard get it from cupcake liner to mouth without your hands becoming chocolate-coated (I know, tough life). I’m thinking maybe because of the higher cocoa content? Anyone have the same problem and/or have an idea for a remedy? Many thanks!

Made these over the weekend and they are awesome, the wife went nuts over them. We didn’t have 60-70 percent laying around but mixed a little 54% semi-sweet chips with some 100% bakers chocolate and it turned out really well. And as Barbara said a couple replies up they are very messy and short of finding chocolate that melts at a higher temperature (it melts just below body temp) nothing can really be done except enjoy the goodness of licking your fingers clean! 🙂

Well Pete, I just stumbleuponed this post and I’m totally blown away. I’m making these immediately for me Reese’s Cup obsessed husband!
Beautiful job and great blog!

Those look awesome, and I had to comment….damn near the best thing in the world for treats like this, is silicone muffin ‘papers’. I have a whack of ‘micro’ sized ones that I use when I make ganache tarts. You paint the melted chocolate on, like in your example, and after a couple of mins in the fridge, after they have been filled, the silicone releases like magic.
Love the site!

Looks great – I’ve actually been craving these for a week now. FYI, I work in the office of a supermarket and about a week ago one of the candy vendors dropped off the Dark Chocolate Reese’s Cups so be on the lookout in your local stores! If it’s coming to Hawaii it should definitely be in a store on the mainland!

I am sitting right now in my office and just cannot wait to go hame and try the recipe out! Firstly it looks amazing and very healthy (especially if you make your own peanut butter and use dark chocolate without soja-lecithine). I just love both ingredients and because of you now the rest 2h I have to spend at work will be EXCRUTIATING!!! :DD

By the way, if any of you happen to be in Berlin, try out the biggest chocolate shop in the world (at Gendarmentmarkt “Fassbender&Rausch”). You will flip after you have tasted “Tembadoro 80%” chocolate :DDD
Greets!

So Pete, you are right on target about using bittersweet chocolate and using a brush, but that brush in the photo looks a little large. A clean artist’s brush works well. Also, try powdering your hand with confectioner’s sugar, rolling the filing into balls and placing them in the cups. Doubling up on the paper cups is a good idea. You can also buy stronger gold foil cups. It’s difficult to handle those chocolate cups without getting finger prints on them. Why not just serve them in the paper cups? Just a few thoughts on this ethereal treat.

I am going to make theese for my sisters birthday party and her bachloreete party. What can you say girls love chocolate

I think I died and went to heaven!!! I love anything chocolate but these are just splendiferous!! Another hint for melting chocolate..I use Hershey’s milk chocolate and Special Dark Chocolate mixed and melt it in a mini crock pot! It’s easy. Thanks for the visuals too! Makes my mouth water just thinking about them.

Awesome Peanut Butter Cups. I love all chocolate and everything made with chocolate. Pete , where are you miss your recipes. Hope to get a new email shortly.Love the website

I made these a few nights ago and I have to tell you that your recipe is incredible! Totally delicious! I had a mini muffin tin that I placed in the freezer while I got the chocolate melted and put my paper liners in that. I used a fork to smooth the chocolate up the sides of the cups. Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups from my own kitchen! Thank you!

Hi, Pete.

This is exactly what I have been looking for. My BF loves reese’s butter cups but theyre a bit hard to get hold of in Ireland so Im lovign the chance to try this recipe out for him.

Im terrible at recipes though when cups are involved. Are they US standard cups or UK?

people use graham cracker crumbs. However these are loaded with many other ingredients not necessary for peanut butter filling such as, graham flour, corn syrup, leavening, and not to mention sugar and salt. When you eat a Reese’s peanut butter cup, the texture you feel are tiny little pieces of – peanuts.
buttercups cupcakes

If you want to try an excellent commercial variety of these (and live in canada) check out The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. They use w/out a doubt some of the best chocolate and peanut butter imaginable…

I make those and use our Chocolate that I temper in my tempeing unit,The tempemping units makes the Chocolates have a snap and a glossy look.Of course our chocolates are real cocoa butter chocolates and that makes also a difference in flavor.

This tastes like garbage. Take this down please. Seriously I used your recipe and my husband has been sick for three days. He had to call out of work and he lost his job and our house is about to get foreclosed on. Thanks a lot. I guess this is your idea of a joke, asshole!

Looks yummy, fun to make with the kids! Do you know how many calories this treat has, and can you substitute agave nectar or raw sugar in place of powder sugar? Thx

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