Desserts, Homemade · September 24, 2015

Popped Amaranth Peanut Butter Cups

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I really should have just gone ahead and named this blog ‘100 Million Ways to Eat PB+ Chocolate Together’, but I’m thinking that would have been too long of a name, right? I realized as I was typing up this recipe that I posted a peanut butter and chocolate cake earlier in the week, and now crispy, crunchy perfectly easy chocolate peanut butter cups today. These were actually born out of not knowing what to do with a bag of amaranth that I had picked up from TJ Maxx recently and also wanting to make homemade peanut butter cups, since they are so easy. I knew amaranth could be popped, but I wasn’t sure how easy it was and wasn’t sure if I was qualified to mess with other grains, since I’m quite inexperienced in that yet. Turns out, you only need to burn exactly 1 batch of amaranth to find out your pan is too hot and when you do get the hang of it, the results are quite lovely. Stirring the puffed grain into melted chocolate and plopping them into some homemade peanut butter cups is super quick and easy, the longest part is waiting for them to set and the hardest is getting the hang of popping the amaranth without burning it all!

If you want a little twist on the traditional homemade peanut butter cup, these are your jam! As I was making them, I realized they are gluten free as well, so they seem to be pretty much suitable for any friend you have that follows a certain diet or way of eating, since peanut butter and chocolate seem to solve all issues in life. If you have homemade peanut butter, now is the time to use it! Since there are so few ingredients in these, I recommend using high quality stuff in these. Also, if you make a batch and need help eating them, you know where to find me.

Keep a super close eye on your amaranth and make sure you don’t let it burn! The good thing is that if it does burn, you are going to be stirring it into chocolate, so it will mask some of the charred flavor. It took me a couple tries to get it juuuust right and start popping. Ashley’s recipe helped a lot when I was popping my batches.
Want more peanut butter cups? Double the recipe! This recipe makes 6, but doubling it would be a breeze and more crispy peanut butter cups= more happy.
If you want to add more peanut butter to the filling, feel free!
Don’t skip the paper liners! They will make removing the cups from the muffin tin much easier and you could avoid a possible mess if you try to pry them out of the pan.
Keep a close eye when melting the chocolate. I don’t use a traditional double boiler method here, but if you are careful enough, you can melt it in a saucepan over low heat. No one likes burnt chocolate, so keep an eye on it.

Don’t forget to enter the Rodelle Giveaway from Tuesday’s post! There is a whole pack of goodies up for grabs, including vanilla extract and some awesome cocoa powder from Rodelle.

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