Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Last night was Valentine’s Day. I celebrated solo by opening a nice bottle of wine from the Willamette Valley, Argyle Pinot Noir and making chocolate peanut butter cups.

I may or may not have listened to Air Supply and The Dirty Dancing Soundtrack while toiling over the stovetop and flinging chocolate everywhere. Funny story: I didn’t know I had proof of my V Day chocolate-making written on my face until I glanced in bathroom mirror, a few hours after my baking extravaganza. I saw chocolate smears all over my cheeks and chin. Sexy.

Tonight, I’m drinking more wine (I have a whole bottle to drink before it goes bad!

 This picture is from 4 years ago but aptly conveys my wine-hardcoreness.

I’m throwing my mouth on the Enjoy-the-wine-while-it’s-still-good grenade.) and experimenting with my new laptop (!).  It’s pretty awesome, mainly just because I can capitalize letters, use the @ sign, and scatter punctuation everywhere I go: for example, here’s a whole bouquet of exclamation points: !!!!!!!

(Bonus points for knowing what story that references to, or at least which author. Hint: He’s one of my top three all-time all-time favorite authors.)

I also want to share with you my recipe for mouthwateringly delicious chocolate peanut butter cups. The recipe is inspired by Averie’s raw recipe. I’ve made them raw before and they turned out amazing (Oh baby, turns out I DO like it raw!) but I wanted a more sinful and decadent chocolate peanut butter cup. I was kind of tipsy from the wine (and homemade kahlua that was gifted to me by The Spicy Vegan.  Rumor is there’s a recipe coming soon to her blog; stay tuned!) so sort of made it up the recipe as I went.

Surprisingly, they turned out amazeballs. Or fantastiplums, as my friend Gareth would say.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

vegan * gluten-free * soy-free (if made with soy-free Earth Balance)

Time: 20 minutes, not including freezer time

Ingredients:

• 1 package vegan dark chocolate chips
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 T Earth Balance
• 2 T Coconut Butter (found, expensively, in most grocery stores)

—

• 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter
• 2 T agave sweetener
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 T nutritional yeast (really!)

Combine in a double broiler first four ingredients (chocolate chips, vanilla, earth balance and coconut butter). If you don’t have a double broiler (*raises hand* I don’t, I don’t!) just use two pots. Fill the bottom one with about 1/4 cup water. Place the first four ingredients in the top pot and stir frequently, over medium heat, until melted and liquidy enough to spoon.

Meanwhile, combine last four ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Spoon chocolate into mini cupcake wrappers. If you have mini cupcakes pans this will be easier, but it will work either way. Once the chocolate coats the bottom of the wrapper, drop in a dollop of peanut butter goo. Spoon more chocolate on top, until peanut butter is covered. Repeat this process until ingredients are used up. You might have more peanut butter goo or more melted chocolate, but that’s certainly not a bad thing. You can be like me and smear the rest of the chocolate on your face, or you can save either  for future recipes. I personally had peanut butter goo left over and will incorporate it into my oatmeal for breakfast the next few days.

When finished, you should have about 16 mini chocolate peanut butter cups. Set in freezer to harden, about 15 minutes. Haphazardly stick the dishes in the sink and plan on getting to them after your next glass of wine. Actually get to them the next morning.

Oh. My. Chocolate. These are really good. These are not in any way healthy (unless you want to count the Vitamin B12 in the yeast—booyeah!) but they are very tasty and satisfy one’s dark chocolate tooth.

They are great as party appetizers or tantalizing your coworkers with yummy vegan and gluten-free treats.

Basically, you should give most of them away as otherwise you will eat them all and die from a rich dark chocolate overdose.

To end this chocolate and wine filled post with, I will share a video of an absolutely lovely cover of Romeo and Juliet.

Related posts: