Recently one of Timmy's coworkers and his lady friend made peanut butter cups and were kind enough to share a few with us. Now if you have ever had peanut butter cups, you very well know that only one or two is not nearly enough. Timmy and I got hit hard with the peanut butter chocolate craving and since I am a chocolate addict it wasn't long until I was popping peanut butter cups like a fiend.
The peanut butter cups I made had a slight twist to them as I made mine not only with peanut butter and chocolate but also with caramel and pretzel pieces...yum!
First I melted down 1 and 1/2 cups of bittersweet chocolate and lined mini muffin lines with the melted chocolate and tucked away into the freezer for an hour. While those were chilling I used all natural peanut butter (1/2 cup) and mixed in 1/4 cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of maple syrup then I tossed in a handful of pretzel sticks and with a spoon mashed the pretzel into the peanut butter mixture.
On the stove top I boiled 1/2 cup soymilk, added 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown rice syrup, mixing until golden brown. One mixed, I removed the pot from the stove top and added 2 tablespoons of Earth Balance, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract and 1 tsp of baking soda, mixing well. I let it cool on the counter top then transferred to the fridge to thicken.
When the caramel sauce was cool I dropped a teaspoon of the peanut butter mix into my chilled chocolate cups, drizzled in the caramel and put back in the freezer for about 15 minutes, then melted down more chocolate and covered the tops, chilled and ate the heck out of them! They were very tasty and similar to take five bars.
