Last Updated: By Linnie 8 Comments
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Homemade peanut butter cups recipe and how to make them in just 4 easy steps and teaching how to make natural from scratch chocolate. Healthy Peanut Butter Cups are the best!
(Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Vegan, Vegetarian, Low-Sugar friendly)
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Oh, peanut butter cups you are so simple, perfect and a timeless favorite for good reason.
You are insanely delicious.
What goes into our healthy peanut butter cups?
- Chocolate (Cocoa Powder, Powdered Sugar, and Butter)
- Peanut Butter
You are more than welcome to use your own chocolate chips to make the chocolate coating, but we like being able to control the amount of sugar going into our chocolate.
How to melt your chocolate with a double boiler system.
- Take a small sauce pan and a fill halfway with water. Bring water to a boil. Turn heat down to low.
- Take a glass bowl and place directly over the saucepan.
- Add chocolate ingredients into glass bowl and whisk together until everything is melted and chocolate is smooth.
Tips on making the best healthy peanut butter cups:
- Use small mini muffin pans to make bite-sized peanut butter cups. I used to make them this way, that was until we’ve moved 3 times in the past 6 months and the mini muffin pan did not make the cut.
- Now if you are making these for yourself, then a large 12 slot muffin tin will work. Less work and quicker results means you get to bite into a peanut butter cup all-the-sooner.
- Add the peanut butter mixture into a small baggie and squeeze into the center of the first layer of hardened chocolate. This will ensure you have a chocolate coating all the way around and a perfect peanut butter center in your natural peanut butter cups.
Most the time when you need to make a dessert, you crave simplicity like these easy buckeye bars (another tasty chocolate peanut butter combo).
Nut-Free Peanut Butter Cups
- If you need to avoid peanut butter due to an allergy feel free to sunflower butter or another nut-free or peanut-free alternative.
Are Peanut Butter Cups Gluten-Free?
- These ones are!
- However, avoid the small holiday peanut butter cups or limited time varieties. They are not gluten-free.
Now I’m not against to getting fancy and making a pie or a pan of the world’s best brownies once in a while, but for the times I’m mindlessly chomping on chocolate while sitting at my desk. These peanut butter cups are made in 30 minutes flat for fast and satisfactory enjoyment.
Yeah … it’s official. Homemade peanut butter cups for the win.
How to Make Homemade Peanut Butter Cups Recipe
Dessert
Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Vegan, Vegetarian, Low-Sugar
American
Homemade peanut butter cups recipe and how to make them in just 4 easy steps and teaching how to make natural from scratch chocolate.Healthy Peanut Butter Cups are the best!
Yield: 20
Prep Time:30 min
Cook Time:15 min
Total Time:45 min
Ingredients:
Chocolate Layers
- 1/2 cup butter (or coconut oil for dairy-free alternative)
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
Peanut Butter Layer
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 3 Tablespoons butter (or coconut oil for dairy-free alternative)
- 3 Tablespoons powdered sugar
Directions:
- 1. Prepare a muffin tin with muffin liners. You can make large peanut butter cups or mini ones using a mini muffin tin.
- 2. Take a small sauce pan and a fill halfway with water. Bring water to a boil. Turn heat down to low.
- 3. Take a glass bowl and place directly over the saucepan.
- 4. Add butter, cocoa powder and powdered sugar into glass bowl. Whisk together until everything is melted and chocolate is smooth.
- 5. Pour a small amount of chocolate on bottom of muffin liners. Chill in freezer 5 mins.
- 6. Meanwhile, in a glass bowl melt together peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar. Stir together until smooth.
- 7. Spoon peanut butter layer into a small ziploc bag. Snip the edges and squeeze peanut butter layer into center of chilled chocolate layer. Chill 5 mins.
- 8. Pour remaining chocolate over each peanut butter cup.
- 9. (Optional: Sprinkle with sea salt.)
- 10. Chill peanut butter cups for 10-15 minutes.
- 11. Store in an airtight container and best to be stored in the refrigerator up to 7-8 days.
Author: Linnie
Recipe Video:
Nutrition Information:
Serving size: 1 mini peanut butter cup
Calories: 146
Other nutrition information: Total Fat: 14.4g , Saturated Fat: 10g , Cholesterol: 0mg , Sodium: 30mg , Potassium: 74mg , Total Carb: 4.8g , Dietary Fiber: 1.1g , Sugars: 3.1g , Protein: 2g
Recipe, images, and text © Veggie Balance
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Reader Interactions
Comments
Jackie saysThanks for sharing! Making these tomorrow for a family picnic this weekend. My unwitting family members will enjoy vegan deliciousness mwuahahaha
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- Natalie says
Looks absolutely delicious and such a wonderful treat kids will love to make too!
Reply
- Brenda says
I tried to make the Keto peanut butter cups. I was trying to make the chocolate but I could not keep the butter from separating from the chocolate and the chocoynever became smooth. Can you tell me what I did wrong?
Reply
- Lindsay says
Were you using coconut butter or normal butter?
Couple things that could of happened.
1. Moisture – If there is even the tiniestttt amount of water or moisture (lets say from the washing the bowl) this can cause the chocolate mixture to seize up essentially and it is very difficult for it to recover.2. Butter type – Depending on the butter type you used. If a generally low-quality butter might have more water or moisture added (especially if you use margarine) then it cause cause this other problem where they don’t mix and the butter separating. So use a good quality butter always. If Dairy-free a cocoa butter can be a good option if you can’t find a quality coconut oil.
3. Heat – So when you say that the chocolate never became smooth is makes me think of it like it seized up and either #1 can cause this or #3 Heat. If you heat the mixture at too high of a heat (another reason we recommend a double boiler system because this can 99.5% of the time prevent this was happening) the too of high of heat can end up seizing up the chocolate and turns it into a glob. Again, unfortunately there isn’t really any way to recover from that as well.
So essentially, use good quality ingredients.. don’t let water or excess moisture in and keep the temperature low and slow for the double boiler system. Can’t say I haven’t screwed up a batch of chocolate before myself lol it happens and #1 or #3 are normally my culprits.
Hope this helps for next time! :))
Reply
- Patti says
Hi,
This recipe sounds great. Is it made with sugar free sugar and sugar free chocolate chips and what kind of peanut butter. I have Peter Pan but I am following the Keto diet so I use sugar free sugar I use xylitol that I made into powdered sugar. and sugar free chocolate chips. Would that work.?
I love all your other recipes. Your cheese cake is a favorite among my friends.
ThanksReply
- Lindsay says
Hi Patti! If you are looking for low-sugar recipes and Keto recipes check out our other sister blog ThatsLowCarb.com – We actually created this blog as the measurements and sweeteners sometimes need to be different when switching over into Keto. Be aware that Peter Pan has a ton of sugar in it and that it is best to use no sugar added peanut butter.
Reply
- Russ says
No instructions on how much of each ingredient to use? Just wing it??
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- Lindsay says
Ummmm there is a recipe card with instructions and how much for each ingredient at the bottom of the post.. which you would of had to scroll past to make this comment…
Reply
