Who Needs Reese’s?
So I’ve gone 3 months without a chocolate chip cookie or a single slice of chocolate cake. I didn’t think such a thing was possible. I remember a conversation I had with my buddy Chu a couple of years ago about how his awesome wife Bethany had given up sugar and I told him, flat out, I could never do it. Well… look at me now.
Giving up refined sugar is undoubtedly the most difficult diet change I’ve ever made. In fact, even three months in, I’m still tempted every day. We had a neighborhood BBQ at our house last Sunday and one of the ladies who lives nearby brought over a batch of freshly baked, still warm brownies. At one point during my rounds of refilling food, I found myself alone in the room with 2 brownies and a bunch of big crumbs. And I heard that little voice whisper in my head, “Go ahead, just take a crumb. Nobody would know.” But I would know, and so I practically ran out of the room and didn’t look back until the last of the brownies was gone.
Since then, my chocolate cravings have been in overdrive, so earlier this week I decided to try out a new recipe I found online. Initially I was going to make a cake, but lacking baking powder, I had to turn to an alternate option, and boy am I glad I did. I had all the ingredients on hand to make these peanut butter cups (it only takes 4!), and they were super quick and easy to whip up. I originally found the recipe here but as I made a slight variation to her instructions, I thought I’d share my revised recipe.
And if you’re anything like me, you just skipped over that whole explanation in search of the chocolatey goodness, so without further ado:
Ingredients:
1/3 cup melted coconut oil (1/3 cup when melted, not when solid)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
All natural, organic peanut butter – room temperature
Paper cupcake liners (it’s not an ingredient, but it’s an important part of the process)
Instructions:
In a small pan on medium-low heat mix the coconut oil, maple syrup and cocoa powder. Whisk until it’s creamy. Place 4 paper cupcake liners on a cookie sheet and spoon 1/8 of the chocolate mixture into the bottom of each. (It was about 1 1/2 small spoonfuls for me – I’m terrible at measuring!)
Wait about 5 minutes for the mixture to cool. During this time, remove the remaining chocolate from the heat and stir up your peanut butter. Once the chocolate has solidified a bit, using a regular sized spoon, drop about a spoonful of peanut butter over the chocolate in the cupcake liners. Then return the remaining chocolate to the heat and make sure it’s well melted. Use what’s left to cover the peanut butter in each cup. Then place the peanut butter cups into the freezer for about 20 minutes.
You’ll want to store these in the freezer as the chocolate quickly gets soft and gooey when left at room temperature. Also, the original recipe didn’t call for heating the chocolate mixture, but I found it’s hard to spread over the peanut butter if it’s not warmed up and it ends up making lumpy looking peanut butter cups.
If you make them, let me know what you think. They’re so easy that they’ll quickly become a favorite treat in our house.
