Making Your Own Peanut Butter Cups

Do you happen to really like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups? If you are anything like the vast majority of Americans who have made this one of the top-selling candy bars, then chances are pretty good that you do. Instead of buying some, why not make your own? Just use this recipe, and you will soon have some great tasting snacks that you can enjoy.

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky, your choice)
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
• 8 ounces milk chocolate
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Recipe:

1. Blend. In a medium sized bowl, combine and blend 1/3 cup of peanut butter (your choice of what kind), the vanilla, and the powdered sugar. You may want to use a hand mixer to help you mix everything together, just make sure that it is on low speed.
2. Chill. Place the blended mixture into the refrigerator and allow it to chill. The mixture should remain in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes, but no longer than an hour.
3. Roll. After the mixture has chilled, remove it from the refrigerator and begin rolling it into balls. Depending on the size of the peanut butter cup you want to make, you will want to make different sized balls. For example, we are making smaller peanut butter cups, so you will need to use a 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon, and use it to scoop up the mixture. Roll each scoop into a ball.
4. Place the mixture. Place each of the balls that you made into a small "bon-bon" paper cup. These cups should be the ones that are 1-1/2 inch in size. If you want to use larger ones well feel free to experiment a bit.
5. Make the coating. Once you have placed each ball into their paper cups, you can begin making the coating. Do this by melting the milk chocolate and 1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter in a saucepan. Make sure that you only use a medium heat, and that you are constantly stirring the mixture or it will burn or scorch.
6. Pour. When the coating is completely melted, you can bring the cups over. Spoon the coating into each of the prepared cups. Make sure that you put enough coating into the cup so that it will completely cover the ball of filling that is already in there.
7. Chill and serve. Once you have finished pouring the coating into the cups, place the cups into the refrigerator to completely cool. You will know that they are ready to serve when they are no longer runny, and are hard to the touch. Enjoy!

This recipe, as it is presented here, is designed so that you can make 24 milk chocolate peanut butter cups. However, there is plenty of room for you to feel free to experiment a bit. For example, if you don't like milk chocolate, feel free to use dark, or even white, chocolate instead. Add a bit of fruit flavoring to the chocolate to give the cups a bit of a twist.