Better than Reese’s peanut butter cups. These peanut butter cup hearts are easy to make, delicious, and require just 4 simple ingredients.
Peanut Butter cups are a family favorite candy in our home and these heart-shaped peanut butter cups taste better than the store-bought ones because they’re homemade and use fresh ingredients.
Peanut Butter Cup Hearts
Homemade Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are easy to make and can quickly be whipped together for a delicious treat for friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, or anyone you want to give a special treat too.
You’ll make a chocolate shell in a silicone mold, mix together a few ingredients for your peanut butter mix and cut it out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, and then combine everything and cover with chocolate.
Peanut Butter Cup Supplies
You’ll need a few kitchen tools and ingredients for your homemade heart-shaped peanut butter cups.
For tools & supplies you’ll need:
- Heart Mold
- Parchment Paper
- Gold Leaf, edible
- Non-Pareils Sprinkles
For Ingredients you’ll need:
- Peanut Butter
- Powder Sugar
- Vanilla
- Pinch of Salt
- Chocolate. *Dairy-free/vegan chocolates should work well here, we tried it with Enjoy Life chocolate that also worked well.
How to Make Peanut Butter Cups Hearts
Here I’ll share step by step instructions on how to make your homemade Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Hearts.
How to Make the Peanut Butter Filling
Mix the peanut butter, powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla until smooth. Fold a piece of parchment paper in half then transfer the peanut butter to one half, fold the other side of the paper over so the peanut butter is in the middle of the two sheets, and smooth the peanut butter mixture to an even ½ inch thickness. Set this in the freezer for about 20 minutes. *It is easier to work with frozen peanut butter mixture, but you can certainly do this with softer peanut butter, it will just be a little bit harder to work with.
While that is chilling you can start with the chocolate.
How to Make Heart Chocolate Shells
Melt the chocolate to package instruction and carefully smooth it into each corner of the heart molds with a small rubber spatula. You want to have a solid and even coating on the hearts, to do this carefully turn the mold around and look at it from each direction to make sure no spots are missed. I like to have the silicone mold on a tray or plate while doing this as it helps with stabilizing the tray while the chocolate is setting up. You will have plenty of chocolate leftover in your melting dish after this step, you will use this in the next steps. Leave the tray on the counter while the peanut butter filling chills.
How to Make Peanut Butter Hearts
Remove the filling mixture from the freezer and freehand cut or use a heart cookie cutter to cut out hearts that will easily fit into the center of the chocolate hearts.
How to Make Heart Peanut Butter Cups
The chocolate should still be very liquidy and the peanut butter hearts should easily push right into the chocolate. Try to press them in just enough that they are in all the way but not so far that they would likely push through to the chocolate that would be the top part of the hearts once removed from the molds.
Pour the rest of the chocolate over the hearts and carefully smooth out so the chocolate evenly fills all of the space around and over the peanut butter filling. Try not to add so much that the bottoms will be mounted up with the chocolate, aim for a flat bottom.
Set into the fridge or freezer, I prefer the freezer with this exact chocolate, to chill for about 20 minutes.
Remove the completely solid hearts from the mold, I like to use food-safe gloves for this to avoid fingerprints.
Set the hearts right onto the same cold/frozen tray that the silicone mold was on in the freezer.
Use the remaining melted chocolate to drizzle over the top of some or all of the hearts.
I sprinkled some nonpareils on a few of them.
I used clean food tweezers to apply a little edible gold leaf on two of the hearts. The trick to using gold leaf is to get the surface of the item you will be decorating just a tiny bit wet. This can be tricky with chocolate so try to add just tiny droplets of water on the exact spot you want the gold. The gold leaf holds up perfectly fine in changing temperatures such as room temp, the fridge, freezer, and then back to room temp again.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
*Exact amounts needed will depend on the specific heart mold you use as many are different sizes. You may also choose to use more chocolate or peanut butter filling, adjust to your mold and preferences.
Heart Peanut Butter Cups
Heart-shaped peanut butter cups combine just 4 ingredients for an easy and delicious treat.
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups dark chocolate wafers (divided so you have some to drizzle on the top after as well)
- 6 oz of natural peanut butter, smooth, and stirred really well to ensure there isn’t any peanut oil visibly present.
- 3.5 tablespoons powdered sugar
- Good pinch of quality salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Optional toppings:
- Tiny nonpareils
- Additional dark chocolate for drizzling
- Edible gold leaf sheets
Instructions
Mix the peanut butter, powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla until smooth. Fold a piece of parchment paper in half then transfer the peanut butter to one half, fold the other side of the paper over so the peanut butter is in the middle of the two sheets, and smooth the peanut butter mixture to an even ½ inch thickness. Set this in the freezer for about 20 minutes. *It is easier to work with frozen peanut butter mixture, but you can
certainly do this with softer peanut butter, it will just be a little bit
harder to work with.
While that is chilling you can start with the chocolate.
Melt the chocolate to package instruction and carefully smooth it into each corner of the heart molds with a small rubber spatula. You want to have a solid and even coating on the hearts, for this carefully turn the mold around and look at it from each direction to make sure no spots are missed. I like to have the silicone mold on a tray or plate while doing this as it helps with stabilizing the tray while the chocolate is setting up. You will have plenty of chocolate leftover in your melting dish after this step, you will use this in the next steps. Leave the tray on the counter while the peanut butter filling chills.
Remove the filling mixture from the freezer and freehand cut or use a cookie cutter to cut out hearts that will easily fit into the center of the chocolate hearts.
The chocolate should still be very liquidy and the peanut butter hearts should easily push right into the chocolate. Try to press them in just enough that they are in all the way but not so far that they would likely push through to the chocolate that would be the top part of the hearts once removed from the molds.
Pour the rest of the chocolate over the hearts and carefully smooth out so the chocolate evenly fills all of the space around and over the peanut butter filling. Try not to add so much that the bottoms will be mounted up with the chocolate, aim for a flat bottom.
Set into the fridge or freezer, I prefer the freezer with this exact chocolate, to chill for about 20 minutes.
Remove the completely solid hearts from the mold, I like to use food safe gloves for this to avoid fingerprints.
Set the hearts right onto the same cold/frozen tray that the silicone mold was on in the freezer.
Use the remaining melted chocolate to drizzle over the top of some or all of the hearts.
I sprinkled some nonpareils on a few of them.
I used clean food tweezers to apply a little edible gold leaf on two of the hearts. The trick to using gold leaf is to get the surface of the item you will be decorating just a tiny bit wet. This can be tricky with chocolate so try to add just tiny droplets of water on the exact spot you want the gold. The gold leaf holds up perfectly fine in changing temperatures such as room temp, the fridge, freezer, and then back to room temp again.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
Notes
Nut free peanut butter alternatives will work well for this recipe.
Dairy free/vegan chocolates should work well here, we tried it with Enjoy Life chocolate that
also worked well.
Marie T.
Monday 25th of January 2021
The look Devine and delicious! This will be fun to make! Thank you!