You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!

Or... maybe I got my chocolate in your peanut butter? One of life's big questions.....

Today's recipe is Homemade Peanut Butter Cups. Mmmmm.... These are delicious and simple (although a bit messy) to make.  

Ingredients:

2 Cups chocolate chips (milk chocolate would be nice, I used semi-sweet because it's what I had)

2 teaspoons butter

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp salt 

12 paper muffin cups (I made them full-sized, but they'd be fun mini-sized, too. Use 24 mini-muffin cups)

The first step is to cut the top half off of the muffin cups (to make them more shallow) 

Place them in a muffin tin.

Next, melt the chocolate chips and the butter together. (you may omit the butter, but it makes the chocolate more glossy) My preferred method is the microwave (50% power for 2 1/2 minutes, stirring occasionally) but you can also melt them in a saucepan or a double boiler if you wish. 

Then, eat the entire bowl,  repeat step 2, and pretend like it never happened. (you may skip this step, it is optional)  

Next, using a small spoon, spread the chocolate on the bottom and sides of each paper muffin cup. Make sure you use about half of the chocolate, as you will need the other half to go on top later.

Put the muffin tin in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour, or the freezer for 15-20 minutes ; to harden up the chocolate. 

While you are waiting for the chocolate to harden, combine peanut butter, powdered sugar, and salt. 

THIS... is the single most useful thing that I learned in high school. 

When measuring peanut butter (or shortening, or anything messy and sticky) line your measuring cup with plastic wrap....

...then measure your peanut butter (or etc.) and pull out the plastic wrap and scrape off your peanut butter into your bowl. It's brilliant!  

Here is what your PB mixture should look like

After your chocolate has hardened, microwave the PB for a minute to make it spreadable. 

Then, scoop some of your PB into your chocolate coated muffin cups. Make sure you leave a bit of space at the top for another chocolate layer. 

Then, pop those babies into the fridge or freezer until they set up  (And, not real babies, of course. The fridge is a bad place for them. I meant the peanut butter cups. But you knew that...right?)

But I digress.... 

When your peanut butter cups are set, you may need to re-melt your chocolate chips. Then, spread a layer of chocolate on top of the peanut butter. Make sure you don't leave any holes in the top or sides. 

Chill (again) until the candies have set up (again) and you are finished!

Magnificent!