Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Peanut Butter Cups! *Yummmmy!!*

I love anything peanut butter and anything chocolate so of course, I love anything that combines the two! My pre-low carb days were full of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and a myriad of other sugar laden choco/peanut butter yummies. I have to be honest - I miss my PB cups! I have tried the Sugar Free Reese's and although the taste was satisfactory, sugar alcohols and my body just don't mix. They make me so sick that I would just rather go without then consume them. Not anymore!! I found a recipe online for something called "Chocolate Coconut Bark" and it got me to thinking about all of the other possibilities for coconut oil candies. If you have read my previous blog, you already know how much I adore coconut oil anyway! ^_^ 
So, I made my very first batch of Sugar Free (with NO sugar alcohols!!!) Peanut Butter Cups and I was very happy with them. Figured I would share the recipe with you! There are a few things I will be tweaking for the next batch but the overall end result was pretty fabulous actually. This made 6 big PB Cups.

 Ingredients:



4 Tbsp Coconut Oil - this should be "refined" CO so as not to add any coconutty flavor (though maybe it could be good lol)
3 Tbsp of Peanut Butter - I use all natural, NON-HYDROGENATED 100% peanut butter with no added sugars (Crazy Richards is my favorite, the only ingredient is PEANUTS.)
3 Tbsp of Unsweetened 100% Cocoa - I prefer Dark Chocolate
Liquid Sucralose to Go - I found this at Wal-Mart (as much as I hate WM - I am willing to brave it for this stuff)
Paper Muffin Cups and a Muffin Tin

Directions:

Melt your CO and stir in the Cocoa and Sucralose - the amount of sweetener you use is entirely up to you. I used about 4 "squeezes" but next time I will increase this a little more because I would have liked them to be just a bit sweeter. Once you have the CO, Cocoa and Sucralose all blended together, line a muffin tin with paper muffin cups. I rubbed a little bit of CO onto the papers because I wasn't sure if maybe the candy would stick. Then using a spoon, drizzle enough of the CO/Cocoa mixture into the bottom of the muffin cups. You want it to cover the whole bottom but you also need to make sure to save enough of the mixture for the top layer. Once you have done that, warm the peanut butter just enough so that it has a creamy consistency and is easy to top the chocolate with. This will be the middle layer. Once you have used all of the peanut butter, it is time to add the final layer. Just go back and drizzle the rest of the CO/Cocoa mixture over the peanut butter layer. You want the PB to be covered completely. I should have taken pictures of these steps but I was so excited that I forgot to do it! Once you have all 3 layers in the muffin cups, place the muffin tin in the freezer for about 15 minutes. This will "set" the PB Cups. After about 15 min in my freezer, my PB cups were firm enough to be able to hold. You may need to adjust this slightly depending on how cold your freezer is kept.



Once they are "set" you can enjoy them!! (My favorite part!) I will list the break down of the carbohydrates below. This may vary slightly depending on what brand of PB you use but this is what mine wound up being:


Hershey's Cocoa: 1g of Net Carb per Tbsp - 1g x's 3 = 3g/Net Carbs
Crazy Richard's PB: 2g of Net Carbs per Tbsp - 2g x's 3 = 6g/Net Carbs

Of course, the coconut oil and liquid sucralose contain -zero- carbs so the entire recipe has 9g of Net Carbs and it makes 6 big PB cups which works out to 1.5g Net Carbs per PB cup. I think that is pretty good considering that this recipe is full of natural ingredients without any harsh chemicals or preservatives. A very healthy, low-carb treat and one of these was plenty enough! Even my non-low carbing sweetie liked them!

*** There are a few things I will tweak next time ***

I would like to buy myself a mini-muffin pan so that I could get a larger quantity of smaller PB cups out of the same recipe. Also, as I already stated, I will add more Sucralose. I may even add a squeeze or two into the PB since natural peanut butter isn't sweet. I think they could stand to be a bit sweeter then they were even though they were still pretty damn tasty. Another thing - when I added the middle layer of Peanut Butter, I think some of the PB sank to the bottom of the cup. When I flipped over my finished product, you could see some peanut butter peaking through the chocolate. To remedy this - next time I am going to put the muffin tin in the freezer while I am preparing the peanut butter mixture. Maybe if you allow the first layer of chocolate to "set" a bit before you add the PB layer, it would solve the sinking problem. I may also try to make the bottom layer of chocolate just a bit thicker then I did this time.

I hope you will give these a try and let me know what you think! ^_^




6 comments:

  1. You need to cook some of these up and come visit your sister ^_~

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    1. I still can't believe I forgot them today!! :0

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    2. I have sf koolaid to use instead of the Sucralose? I am excited to make these on my day off for a sweet lunch treat/snack!

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  2. ha ha, I came to say visit you and say hello, and just spent an hour on your link to Paisley designs! What can I say... I love paisley!

    It's nice to meet another low carber. Great way to live!
    Happy New Year!

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    1. ^_^ Paisley just makes me happy!!! Thanks so much for coming by! I love to find other low carbers out there, it is indeed such a great way to live!

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  3. This looks so good, I'm fixing to go make some =)

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