Just like last year you won’t see any lovely love is everywhere valentines day recipes from me. #sorrynotsorry I’m simply to bitter, cold and happily in love for such consumption oriented holidays. My human of choice is always suffocated with love, affection and food, we’re definitely not in need for a special day on which we show how much we love each other. We’re ‘Hopaness Romtic‘ 24/7 (oh gosh, you see, this is gonna be another post that’s serious af)
Yet, I couldn’t help but notice that I posted the last sweet dessert in November. And as I’m a hopaness romtic, when it comes to peanut butter I’ve got yet another sinful dessert for you. Quite a giant taste- but also calorie-wise.
These pb + jelly cups are definitely don’t fall into line with my current fitness and health oriented lifestyle (2017 was a rather unsporting, undisciplined year…)
The upside though is that these Reese’s inspired peanut butter jelly cups are so rich and heavy that I can’t possibly eat more than a half at once.
In order to achieve the cute little shapes I’ve used a muffin tray along with some muffin paper cups. If you don’t own a muffin tray you can layer your chocolate and peanut butter in pretty much every mould you have. Just make sure to cover your mould with baking paper, foil or the like in order to be able to remove the cups once they’re firm.
The peanut butter jelly cups consist of three layers. A creamy, nutty peanut butter layer with a sweet jam core is coated with tempered, dark chocolate. This is the first time I took actually took the time to temper the chocolate and though it takes a little longer I’d recommend to go that extra mile.
Tempering chocolate helps obtaining the aroma as well as the shiny, flawless surface. If you don’t temper your chocolate it’ll become matte and lose some flavour. Tempering means slowly and carefully melting the chocolate and – once it has melted – cooling it down again to about 25°C / 77°F only to reheat it again to about 30- 33°C / 86 – 91,4°F – the perfect temperature to process the chocolate further.
Covered by layers of dark chocolate lies a sweet and creamy layer of peanut butter, containing a little dab of fruity cherry jam.
In order to ensure that the pb layer stays firm in shape it’s important to add another ingredient. I’m talking about coconut butter (which is different from coconut oil) which prevents the peanut butter mass from dissolving.
Yet I recommend to store your Pb & Jelly cups in the fridge. In favour of taste and calories I tried to keep the amount of coconut butter as low as possible, which consequently leads to a decrease in firmness.
Fresh from the fridge the pb layer will still be a little soft, especially when you bite into the crisp chocolate. This contrast between crunchy chocolate and soft and creamy peanut butter is quite heavenly.
For coconut oil the flesh of the coconut is dried and pressed until the oil emerges.
For coconut butter the flesh of the coconut is blended until the oil emerges and forms a homogeneous mass.
It’s quite easy to make coconut butter yourself. You just need to blend shredded coconut in a food processor. As I currently don’t own such a device I resorted to store bought organic coconut butter.
If you absolutely can’t find coconut butter you can still use the coconut oil – but be prepared for a slightly greasier result
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