Mini Peanut Butter Cups

I thought it would be fun to try some mini peanut butter cups. Previously I had made these Reese's Peanut Butter Bars from Our Best Bites. I was truly amazed that they tasted exactly like the peanut butter filling of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. (I'm pretty sure the graham crackers are the trick.) So it's been on my mind to try out my own mini pb cups.  There are several techniques to creating the mini cups, and I tried a few methods before finding one that worked the best for me. Here's how I made them:

First prepare the bottom chocolate layer of pb cups:

Ingredients:
melting milk chocolate wafers
squeeze bottle (like for condiments, with a narrow tip)
mini paper cups

Fill clean squeeze bottle halfway with chocolate wafers. Microwave at half power for 1 minute. Shake & squeeze, then microwave 1 minute again. Repeat until chocolate is smooth and melted. As you work with the chocolate, you'll notice it becoming thicker and harder to smooth overtime. Just re-melt as needed.



Holding several paper cups (to give more stability to the cups), squeeze chocolate around the sides of top cup and into the bottom. I started with one ring of chocolate just under the cup's top edge, so the chocolate could drip down the sides to the bottom., then another ring just below it. Then I zig-zagged chocolate along the bottom. To fill in the mini-holes, I used a toothpick to spread the chocolate, coating the paper cup. (I found if I used more chocolate to fill in the holes, there ended up being too much chocolate.) Then to smooth it all out, I shook it a little and dropped it (from about a 6 inch height).

To ensure the chocolate cups dried in a round, shape, I put the wet chocolate lined cups into a mini-muffin tin.

Second prepare the filling:

While the chocolate sides/bottoms are setting up (which happens very quickly) you can make the peanut butter filling.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C graham cracker crumbs
1 lb (3 1/2 C) powdered sugar
1 1/2 C creamy peanut butter
1 C (2 sticks) real butter, melted

Mix thoroughly. This makes enough to fill a 9 x 13 pan, so unless you want a lot of pb cups, you may want to half the filling recipe. (I ended up using half the filling to make the before-mentioned Peanut Butter Bars in a smaller casserole dish; then I cut out fun shapes with cookie cutters.) Anyway...

Shape small discs (mini pb cup sized) from the filling. Press into hardened chocolate shells. Don't worry about the pb filling being completely smooth--the chocolate on top will fill in any dips.

Third, cover the filling with a chocolate layer:

Remelt/smooth the chocolate. Zig-zag your final layer on top of peanut butter filling. Spread chocolate by gently shaking/tilting pb cup. To smooth, again drop pb cub onto counter. Let dry.