PEANUT BUTTER CUPS { Vegan & Gluten Free }

Chocolate and peanut butter - one of the most heavenly flavor combinations known to man. In fact, it may even be considered the perfect cure-all to a bad day. What could possiby make our favorite sweet, creamy, pre-packaged treat any better than it already is? How about reducing the not-so-healthy mile-long ingredient list to only four simple, and (..almost) healthy items? Oh yes.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am thrilled to introduce to you one of my new loves. This recipe will be your next best friend, I promise.

My favourite part about making these is watching the filling form. The mixture seems oddly runny at first. There is a brief moment as the filling churns when it seems as though I have failed miserably. Then, suddenly, the mixture magically begins to thicken up and all my fears melt away! The runny, grainy batter turns into a beautiful, thick, aromatic dough. Oh baby.

I must warn you - your kitchen will smell too good to be true. You may be overcome with an overwhelming desire to devour the entire bowl, but I beg of you, WAIT! The end result will be so much more rewarding if you wait. Right?

PEANUT BUTTER CUPS { Vegan & Gluten Free }

Yields 1.5 dozen cups of joy

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup natural* peanut butter

• 1 1/2 TBSP pure maple syrup

• 2 1/2 TBSP icing sugar

• Lots of dairy-free chocolate

*Yes, the peanut butter must be natural. Processed peanut butter will not thicken the same way.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place all of the ingredients except for the chocolate into your mixer and mix. Yes, it really is THAT simple!

2. Grab your muffin tins and line them with paper muffin liners. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, being careful not to burn it. Pour about 1 teaspoon of chocolate into each liner and shake, shake, shake until the chocoalte covers the bottom. Place the chocolate bottoms into the fridge to set. **WARNING - this will get messy!**

3. Scoop 1 tablespoon of your beautiful peanut butter filling and roll into a ball before pressing into a perfectly round patty. Place the patties onto the chocolate bottoms.

4. Blanket the peanut butter patties with a generous amount of melted chocolate. Place this back into the fridge for an hour, or until the chocolate is completely hardened.

5. Once the chocolate is set, slowly peel away the paper liners from your masterpiece; this should be very easy to do. VOILA! You now have 1 1/2 dozen bites of pure love.

PRO TIPS:

• When spreading the top and bottom layers of chocolate, I found that shaking each one individually resulted in the most even distribution

• If your mixture seems to wet, add more icing sugar. If the mixture is too dry, add more peanut butter.

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