One of the few times I lament being vegan in day-to-day life is when I walk past the Reese’s products in the supermarket. I used to love Peanut Butter Cups and unfortunately, the vegan alternatives haven’t quite made their way to the UK yet. Thankfully, it’s quite easy to make your own, and after seeing so many pictures of the homemade treats, I decided to give it a go.
While I was at it, I thought it might be a good idea to try a reduced-sugar version. These aren’t sugar-free unless you manage to find a no-sugar-added, meltable dark chocolate, but they have far less sugar than commercial versions, so in my book, that’s a win!
If you have a silicone muffin tin or silicone liners, this is the time to bring them out. I used a standard metal mini-muffin tin, and while the result was perfectly acceptable, my life would have been far easier if I had used a silicone tin.
- 200g dark chocolate, divided
- 100g peanut butter
- 2 tsp stevia (I use Truvia)
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- Melt 100g of your chocolate. I usually do this by microwaving on full power in 20 second increments, stirring frequently.
- If you’re using a mini-muffin tin, add one teaspoon of chocolate to each hollow, or two teaspoons per regular-sized muffin tin hollow. Using the spoon, make sure you evenly coat the bottom and sides of each segment. Let chill in the fridge for five minutes.
- In a small bowl, melt together the peanut butter, stevia and vanilla paste – I use the same microwaving technique as I do for the chocolate.
- Remove your tin from the fridge and add your peanut butter mixture to each chocolate shell. Again, I used 1 teaspoon per mini-muffin cup, and two teaspoons should fill a regular-sized version. Return to the fridge.
- Melt your remaining chocolate, remove your cups from the fridge and top each cup with dark chocolate until it is filled to the brim.
- Chill for 15 minutes, or until solid.
- If you’re using silicone cups, you should be able to just peel them off your chocolates. If you used a metal tin, I advise turning the tin upside down, letting a bit of hot water run over it and then popping the cups out of the tin with a spoon. You’ll lose a bit of chocolate this way, but that’s not too much of a catastrophe.
- Finally, you can serve your cups in little paper wrappers, or just eat them as they are.
