“One treat found in just about any candy shop here in America is the peanut butter cup. While the industry is pretty much ruled by one snack that begins with the letter ‘R’, we recently began to wonder if we can make our own. And the answer turned out to be “Of course we can!”

So the secret to a good peanut butter cup isn’t the chocolate. What really makes them shine is finding the right peanut butter center. We couldn’t use just peanut butter because that would leave the wrong texture, and would probably effect the shape of the cups we’ve come to hold dear. The trick, we found, was to mix the peanut butter in with some confectioners’ sugar and graham cracker crumbs. It provided just the right amount of sweetness with some firmness to it as well to make the peanut butter cups a perfect no-bake treat. Keep reading below for our recipe.

1 hour 30 minutes to prepare serves 15

Ingredients

• 2 cups milk chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter
• 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs

Preparation
Line a mini-muffin tin with cupcake liners, set aside. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, set aside.
In a medium saucepan, combine peanut butter, butter, and the brown sugar. Heat until completely melted, and starting to bubble a little, stirring constantly.
Remove from the heat, then add the powdered sugar and graham cracker, about 1/4 cup at a time, stirring until completely combined before adding more. Set aside to allow to cool.
Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips and shortening together in the microwave in 30-second increments, stirring after each increment until melted.
Spoon a little melted chocolate into the bottom of each lined muffin cup (you want to leave chocolate leftover.)
Use a heaping teaspoon to scoop out the peanut butter mixture, and roll into a thick disk (you want it to fit comfortably into the muffin tins without quite touching the edges) for each cup in the mini muffin cup. Once finished with all of the peanut butter mixture, refrigerate both the muffin tins and the peanut butter for 30 minutes.
Place a peanut butter patty into each lined up in the tin, then use a scoop or a spoon to add more melted chocolate on top (you’ll probably need to re-melt the chocolate in the microwave for a few more 30 second bursts). Make sure the chocolate goes over and around each patty.
Refrigerate again for 30 minutes, then serve! Store in the fridge or freezer.
Enjoy!