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These vegan peanut butter cups are so indulgent and so easy to make. They just take four ingredients and a few minutes of prep. That. Is. It. I originally wanted to try making these because my fiancé loves peanut butter anything and peanut butter and chocolate even more so. (Did you know fiancé is the male gender-specific way to spell the word, and when referencing a female there is an extra e? Sorry, I am a writer by trade and a grammar/word nerd. The spelling difference is a French thing and pretty irrelevant in modern English…but still…rambling about this for several sentences seemed important.) I remember making him a no-bake peanut butter and chocolate pie one time toward the beginning of our relationship, and I am pretty sure that thing did not survive the night. That’s one dessert that will be worth revisiting, vegan style. But I digress.
Today we are talking about chocolate peanut butter cups, basically a universally loved combination /candy/food—unless of course you are allergic to nuts…sorry Cara. If you are allergic or nut-free, no worries. I’ll be posting a ton more chocolate recipes shortly. If you don’t feel like waiting I’ll share a little trick with you: omit the peanut butter and you have my basic chocolate recipe. Then you just need something to pour that liquid heaven into and you are good to go. Yes, it’s seriously that easy to make vegan chocolate with 3 ingredients. Keep in mind these are all dark chocolate varieties, but I plan on figuring out vegan milk chocolate soon enough. Enjoy!
4 Ingredient Vegan Peanut Butter Cups
These vegan peanut butter cups are the shit. (I am bad at writing summaries.)
Equipment
- mini cupcake paper cups, cupcake tin, or chocolate mold deep enough to hold the chocolate and peanut butter
Ingredients
- 1/3 cup coconut oil virgin, unrefined (*see notes)
- 1/3 cup cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp maple syrup or agave* or to taste
- 12 tsp peanut butter Approximate – 1 tsp to a peanut butter cup
Instructions
- Melt the coconut oil in microwave for 1 minute or on stovetop if it's in a solid state.
- Add the coconut oil, cocoa powder, and maple syrup to a bowl and mix until smooth.
- Lay out your paper cupcake cups on a plate, tray, or drop them into a cupcake tin. Make sure whatever you use will fit in your freezer and sit relatively flat.
- Using a teaspoon, drizzle chocolate into each cup just enough that the bottom is completely covered. (The chocolate will be very thin at this stage.)
- Using a teaspoon, drop in a dollop of peanut butter into each cup. Use more or less depending on how peanut-buttery you like your cups. The peanut butter will look messy AF and that is a.o.k.
- Drizzle chocolate over the peanut butter until it is completely covered.
- Pop your plate/tray/tin into the freezer for about an hour. I usually get impatient and test their readiness after a half hour and they are usually solid enough to eat.
Notes
- The chocolate will have a mild coconut flavor and is best stored in the freezer or fridge.
- Organic, virgin/unrefined, cold-pressed coconut oil is basically the best stuff you can get. It’s as minimally process as possible, and perfect for chocolate making. Refined coconut oil has a higher smoke point, thus making it better for cooking/baking.
- You can sub sugar for the maple syrup/agave if that’s all you have but the texture may be gritty/crunchy and not disperse very well. Alternatively, you could try making simple syrup if you are going to use sugar (equal parts water and sugar heated in saucepan until sugar dissolves). For-warning you that I have never tried that with this recipe, so I am not sure how well it would work. The chocolate mixture is highly made up of oil and simple syrup contains a lot of water…the two may not mix well.
