You will be hard pressed to find a kid or an adult who doesn’t enjoy a creamy, chocolatey, peanut butter cup, especially on Halloween! This month, we’ve got a DIY Halloween candy recipe you are going to want to have all year round. To make these festive for Halloween, use any kind of Halloween sprinkle you like to add to the top or use orange and black muffin tin liners!
Melting the chocolate will be the most intensive part of this recipe. Make sure you don’t burn yourself by not letting the water underneath the bowl of the double boiler boil over. You also don’t want to burn the chocolate. If scorched, the chocolate can become grainy and crumbly, rendering it unusable and tasting burnt. Make sure you read the instructions on double boiling carefully, especially if you haven’t melted chocolate this way before!
Ingredients
16 ounces semi-sweet dark chocolate OR 8-9 ounces dark chocolate chips
½ cup natural peanut butter – (almond butter works great too!)
2 tbsp butter, softened
1.75 oz confectioner’s sugar, sifted
Optional toppings: Coarse grey sea salt OR orange & black sprinkles
Equipment:
Muffin tin
Muffin tin liners
Pot and non-plastic, stove safe bowl (for double boiler method to melt chocolate)
Wooden spoon
Instructions:
- Grease muffin tin.
- No need to grease the muffin tin if you’re using silicone muffin liners
- Melt ½ portion of the chocolate:
- Boil water in pot. Turn stove on low. Put non-plastic, stove safe bowl on top of pot. Make sure there is at least ½ inch of space between the water and the bottom of the bowl.
- Put unmelted chocolate into the bowl. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon until chocolate is melted. IMPORTANT: do not let the water below the bowl with the chocolate boil over. You want to make sure that you don’t burn the chocolate.
- This melting process should take somewhere between 5-10 minutes.
- Pour a layer of the melted chocolate into each muffin tin, barely filling the bottom of each cup.
- Tip: If you want to hide the peanut butter filling layer from sight, take the muffin tin and swirl it around so that the chocolate goes up the sides of the liners. Once you add the peanut butter and second chocolate layers, they will set up in the freezer so that the peanut butter layer is hidden.
- While the chocolate is setting up in the freezer, whip peanut butter, softened butter, and confectioner’s sugar until smooth.
- Once chocolate is set up with first layer (after about 15-20 minutes), drop a dollop of the peanut butter into each cup. Lightly drop the pan repeatedly on your countertop to flatten out the peanut butter layer.
- Put the muffin tin back into the freezer and wait another 15-20 minutes for the second layer to set up.
- Melt the rest of the chocolate.
- Pour the last layer of chocolate onto the top of each cup and put the muffin tin back in the freezer.
- If you want to add some festive Halloween sprinkles, take the muffin tin out after about 7-8 minutes, when the cups are almost set up, and so the sprinkles can set up on top (instead of sinking inside!)
- Serve to hungry ghouls & goblins, witches & ghosts!
What’s your favorite Halloween candy? Have you ever made Halloween candy at home? Let us know in the comments!
Recipe adapted from fifteenspatulas.com