Decadent Peanut Butter Cups

Source: found at Culinary in the Desert

440g smooth peanut butter
225g confectioners' sugar
50g brown sugar
500g good quality dark chocolate
90g softened butter, divided (60g and 30g)

In a mixer place the peanut butter, both sugars and 60g of softened butter into the bowl. Mix on medium until well combined. This will be fairly soft and a little tacky.

Place between 1/2 to 1 tablespoon of the peanut butter mixture into shallow candy cups (you can use muffin papers if you can't find them). How much you place depends on how big your cups are. Try to fill them about 1/2 full and smooth the top with your finger.

After all papers are filled, melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in a microwave. If doing in the microwave try and use half power for 2-3 minutes - mixing every 30 seconds. When melted stir in the remaining butter (30g) and place in the microwave for 30 seconds or back over the double boiler until the butter starts to melt. Mix the two together well.

Spoon the chocolate evenly over each cup. If needed, very carefully smooth the chocolate with a knife or place a thin spatula underneath the paper and gently shake back and forth. Place the filled cups into the refrigerator until the chocolate is set. If you want a firmer peanut butter layer go ahead and place in the freezer.

My notes: I made these in mini-muffin cup placed in mini-muffin pans to hold their shape (the recipe made about 54 cups). Placing the cups in the trays also helps to smooth out the chocolate - you can gently shake the sides of the pan and tap them on the counter. The only hard part about making these is getting the peanut butter into the cups. It's not actually hard, so much as tedious. Once that's done, however, it's a breeze. These are very good, but I'm a bit concerned about how soft the peanut butter is - straight out of the fridge they are fine, but I'm worried that they will soften up at the party and be hard to eat. I will probably freeze them first to help keep the peanut butter firm. A bit of chocolate encasing the peanut butter would solve this problem, but they would also be a lot harder to make. For gram measurements, I used my kitchen scale.

I talked about this recipe here: Something sweet and something savory.