Homemade Reese’s Cups
My Instagram followers were very excited about this recipe, so I wanted to get it up early enough in your Sunday that you would still have time to make them before the weekend was over! Also, if you don’t follow me on Instagram, but are interested in sneak peeks of what I’m making and gratuitous pictures of my cat sitting at the counter, you can find me as @smilesbymeg.
Basically this came about through some mindless scrolling of my NY Times Cooking app, which I was really on to find a dinner recipe (I settled on pumpkin coconut curry). Then I saw a collection of Halloween Treats for Adults and thought that as a baking blogger, it’s kind of unbelievable that I hadn’t thought of making my own Halloween candy yet. Reese’s are one of my absolute favorites, and the recipe claimed to be easy, so I gave it a shot.
Spoiler alert: it was definitely easy, and I strongly recommend you find some dark chocolate and peanut butter and make these now. Or milk chocolate and cashew butter. Or white chocolate and almond butter. See why I’m so excited about these?
Also, I made these in normal size foil cupcake wrappers, but that’s only because I couldn’t find any mini ones. I tried both Whole Foods AND Star Market and was let down by both. So rather than the taller, chunkier mini-size Reese’s, I made the flatter, thinner regular size Reese’s. If you’re going the mini route, make 18 instead of 12, but otherwise keep everything the same.
First, melt about 4 ounces of the chocolate in a double boiler. I splurged for those big blocks of chocolate you see at Whole Foods because if I’m going to make my own candy, I’ll be using the best ingredients.
Spoon a little more than a tablespoon of the melted chocolate into each prepared cupcake wrapper. I pinched the sides of the foil wrappers. Together a bit to make them a little smaller.
Use an offset spatula to spread the chocolate to fully cover the bottom and to come a little of the way up the sides of each wrapper.
Set those aside to cool at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
While that’s happening, make the filling. Whisk together the peanut butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla extract and salt until smooth.
Transfer the peanut butter mixture into a piping bag with a #12 tip, or just into a plastic bag and cut off one corner.
Pipe the mixture onto the center of each semi-solidified chocolate base. Don’t spread the peanut butter all the way to the wrapper – there should be a visible circle of chocolate around each dollop.
Wet one of your fingers and lightly pat the top of each peanut butter dollop to smooth it out – again, be sure not to spread the peanut butter to the wrapper.
Melt the remaining chocolate in the double boiler.
Spoon the chocolate over the peanut butter to cover, being sure no peanut butter is left exposed.
Using your offset spatula, carefully smooth out the tops. Pop in the fridge to chill for a couple of hours before serving.
Foil wrappers make for not great pictures, but look at how good these look! And the inside is even better. I’m planning on storing them in the fridge in an airtight container, because cold Reese’s are the best Reese’s, and because I think they’d melt at room temperature.
Enjoy!
Homemade Reese’s Cups
Ingredients:
- 9 ounces semisweet chocolate
- 3/4 cup (205 grams) smooth natural peanut butter
- 1/4 cup (28 grams) confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions:
- Chop up the chocolate. Melt about 4 ounces in a double boiler. Spoon chocolate evenly between 12 regular muffin wrappers or 18 mini muffin wrappers.
- Use an offset spatula to spread chocolate on bottom of each wrapper to coat and to spread up the sides a bit. Set aside to cool at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract and salt until smooth. Spoon into a piping bag with a #12 tip (or a plastic bag with the corner cut off).
- Pipe peanut butter onto the center of each semi-solidified chocolate base, leaving a ring of chocolate around the outside of each dollop.
- Use a moistened finger to dab the top of each dollop to flatten, taking care not to spread peanut butter to wrapper.
- Melt remaining 5 ounces of chocolate in double boiler.
- Spoon chocolate over peanut butter to cover. Use an offset spatula to smooth out the tops.
- Refrigerate for a couple of hours to harden. Serve chilled.
