Wow… these were super easy and fun to make! We will definately make them again… and… again…. and…. ah…. again again! (haha)

All you need is a small cup pan, and some little paper cups. We got our pan on eBay a while back, for making little mini-muffin bites. Never have much done them, but the pan is PERFECT for PBCups!

This is so easy. You get one or two of those big block Herhsey’s chocolate bars. Break up about one bar into a microwavable cup, like a measuring cup or a glass bowl. Microwave a minute at a time, just until you get them nice and liquidy hot. I used just a little teaspoon to stir it up. Once it’s hot…. You just ladle in about half the cup full of chocolate. A little less than a full spoon was perfect. Tap the pan a little on the counter and it will settle nicely. Let them cool for a few minutes.

In another cup, take 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and add to this 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar. Start with one tablespoon of sugar and start to stir. You want to stiffen up the peanut butter a bit, so you can roll a little ball with your fingers. You’ll see it go from a butter to a sort of crumbly thick dough, almost. That’s perfect. Then just snitch a little pinch of this dough and make it a little ball in your fingers. When done, squish it a little bit, like a thick coin. Don’t make it too wide, or it won’t fit in your cup and you won’t be able to get the chocolate to seal in around it. (Don’t ask how we know this… Hmmmmm)

My picture shows the peanut centers a little sticky, and our second batch we added a little bit more sugar to make them a bit less sticky. Of course, I forgot to take a picture, but you will see pretty quick what we’re talking about. Even sticky, they worked fine.

Once you have all the little cup insides placed into the half filled cups, you just warm up the rest of the chocolate and ladle it over the centers. The hot sort of melts the peanut butter dough nicely and with a little tap tap at the end, it settles in nicely around the center. It’s really easy. Took less than a half hour to make a double batch!

The hardest part was letting them cool and set up nicely. I ended up setting them in a little container and setting them into the frig. They were so good. And just really neat to make. Who would have thought they would be so easy? I have always avoided making candy because I was afraid of all the thermometers and double boilers and just all that hard and fancy cooking! Now, of course, these were not totally from scratch, and really very easy, but you know it’s little things like this that give you the confidence to try a little harder recipes. And then to learn some of the more fancy recipes. My next goal is to learn how to make little chocolate covered mint patties! They are my absolute favorite candy! Next to peanut butter cups.

Now, just so I don’t loose my homesteading/homemaker license… I must tell you. These peanut butter cups tasted SOOOOO good! And you know what went in them. It’s amazing just how good homemade stuff tastes! I was in a hurry this morning to get some errands done before a meeting with a friend, that I skipped breakfast and grabbed a breakfast sandwich at a fast food place. After I got done paying $4 something for this combo disaster, I sat there and thought, this tastes awful. It looked NOTHING like the beautiful picture on the menu board and it was just blah and nasty. For $4 I could have made a half dozen of these at home and they would have been wonderful. Thank goodness I’m finally starting to ween myself and my family off this fast food crap. It’s just so rarely does it measure up anymore. Learning to make special treats is just another fun way to experience the wonderful taste of homemade. And the feeling of accomplishment when you succeed!