Delightfully sweet, yet not overly so, these homemade peanut butter cups are an indulgence you can feel good about every now and again.
I like to have these on hand during the holidays when I’d otherwise be tempted to indulge in many refined sweets. These are so good it helps me keep to my “whole food” ideals.
If you’re currently eating completely sugar-free (I do many times for hormone balance) use stevia or a stevia blend instead of honey. I do love the extra chewiness that honey provides however, it makes it seem quite fudgy.
Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
Easy to make treat.
Servings: 16 servings
Calories: 114kcal
Ingredients
- 1 cup cocoa
- 1 cup coconut oil melted
- 2/3 cup honey plus 1 Tbsp
- 1/2 cup peanut butter softened
Instructions
- Add 1/2 cup each of the cocoa, coconut oil, and 1/3 cup of the honey to a medium-sized bowl and mix together until smooth. Pour into a greased pan (or press waxed paper into the pan so you can just pull it out when slicing) and freeze until firm, about one hour.
- Mix the peanut butter with a Tbsp of honey, just enough so it's slightly sweet. Spread over the frozen chocolate layer.
- Mix together the rest of the cocoa, oil, and honey as you did for the first layer and spread over peanut butter.
- Freeze until firm, about 1 more hour.
- Hide from your family. Or give it away to keep from eating all of it! Simply keep them in the fridge or freezer to keep them from melting or getting too soft to handle.
Notes
Sugar-free variation - use stevia or a stevia blend instead of honey.
Tips
- keep these cold as they will start to melt a bit over 75 degrees because of the coconut oil
- you can also use butter in place of the oil for different flavor and to keep them from melting at room temp
- make them in cupcake liners (mini or regular) for true “PB cup” form!
Donielle Baker
owner and editor of Natural Fertility and Wellness at Natural Fertility and Wellness
I believe women can learn how to heal their bodies & balance their hormones through natural methods. An advocate for natural health, I have a passion for nourishing/real food nutrition and natural living. My personal background includes both infertility and miscarriage and I started Natural Fertility and Wellness in 2008 in order to share all of the information I found helpful in my journey to heal from PCOS and overcome infertility.
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Brilliant, Donielle! While I wouldn’t call these cups per se (more likely bars or squares), who the heck cares what you call them? LOL Can’t wait to try these and we all need non-baked goods right now! 🙂
Shirley
@Shirley @ gfe, I forgot to say that I originally made them in cupcake liners! 🙂 THEN they look like cups. doh!
@donielle, Oooh, that would be pretty and definitely cups! 😉 Squares are more “green” though. 🙂 I already shared your link on FB and people are excited to make these, Donielle!
Shirley
I love step #5! I actually figured out a way to keep the family from devouring it. Just use about 1/2 the honey it calls for and you’ll get a nice, dark chocolate bittersweet flavor. (If that floats your boat.) Mine lasted for over two weeks with just me eating it and trying to be good. 🙂
Thanks so much for sharing! I had not been too successful with mixing in the peanut butter but the layers make so much more sense!
I usually tell my kids that my special treats have coffee in them and then they leave them alone. My husband though, that’s another story….
Thank you for this post! I made them today and they were delicious! Peanut butter cups is one thing that I have missed since eating healthier and these were so much better than Reese’s!!
-Liz 🙂
Made these tonight in cupcake liners and they were SO YUMMY and SUCH a hit. Can not wait to make bite sized versions in mini-cups. THANK YOU!
oh yum. I like the fact that these are layered as well. I’m going to make them in my mini muffin tin, and I think I’ll try butter instead of coconut oil. Although it is a good way to get some coconut oil in me… hm… decisions..
What a great recipe! So simple and so much healthier than any other candy!
I made this last night and wanted to give my thoughts: When I first mixed the cocoa, oil, and honey together it tasted like some kind of honey paste. There was barely any chocolate flavor and it was super sweet. Now granted, I really like my deep dark chocolate, but I had to use 3 times as much cocoa as suggested to get the chocolate flavor to come through and even then it was pretty darn sweet. The salty peanut butter balanced it out even more though, so that helped. But even after all that my husband said “wow – there’s a lot of honey in this!” So in future I’ll make it with more cocoa and less honey than the recipe calls for. But on the whole it’s a really great treat!
Thank you soooo much for this recipe!!! My family is doing the GAPS diet, and I have been NEEDING something to decompress from stress. My go to has been cinnamon rolls, but that’s an illegal food in the diet. Soooo, I can not wait to make these!!!!
These were fabulous!!! I’m afraid that they won’t last but a couple of days in our house. =)
Chocolate and peanut butter has to be one of the best combinations ever. These look fantastic!