Theresa's Peanut Better Cups
Why I Love This Recipe
Since I am allergic to milk protein, I had to do something to get peanut butter cups back into my life! The only problem is, these are so good, that my family rarely leaves me any.
Ingredients You'll Need
100% Peanut Butter, like Laura Scudder's Creamy, 16 oz. jar
12 ounces high quality bittersweet dark chocolate (the kind without milk fat. I use Scharffen Berger 70%)
Soy protein powder, 1/2 cup
Honey, 1/2 cup (don't use wild honey if you're feeding small children)
Vanilla Extract (I use Trader Joe's Bourbon Vanilla, 3 tablespoons)
Vanilla beans, ground, 1 tablespoon
Caster sugar (aka Baker's sugar, 1/2 cup)
Margarine, 2-3 tablespoons
Directions
This is so easy, it's almost embarrassing. You mix the peanut butter, the honey, the protein powder, 1 tablespoon of ground vanilla beans, and a tablespoon of vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl. When it's well mixed, you pat it into an 8" X 8" glass baking dish, making it an fairly even layer (no sense being precise, some pieces should have more chocolate for the fun of it.)
Melt the margerine in a double boiler, then add broken up chunks of the 12 oz. of bittersweet chocolate. When it finishes melting, add about 1/3-1/2 cup of caster sugar. After the sugar melts, turn off the burner and stir in 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. Then pour it on top of the peanut butter mixture, as evenly as possible.
Cover the dish with foil and place in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, until the chocolate is hardened. It cuts well with a sharp kitchen knife. If it's for a party, I cut 1" squares and put them in pretty paper cups. If it's just for me, I leave it in the pan and keep it in the fridge so it stays moist.
Last Christmas, a 13 X 9 X 2 double batch disappeared before I got more than one piece! Thank goodness I keep a lot of chocolate in the house so I could make more after they all went home