Cheap vs Steep vs DIY vs Brand | Peanut Butter Cups

by Barry Lewis

Ingredients

200g milk chocolate, broken into very small pieces / grated

125g peanut butter, smooth or crunchy

2-3tbsp icing sugar, sifted

If you fancy making it from scratch:

Homemade Icing sugar

450g Caster sugar

2tbsp Cornflour

Homemade Peanut butter

400g peanuts, shelled

honey, salt and oil to taste.

Reese’s peanut butter cups! Amazing little things and fun to make from scratch too. But can a recipe as simple as it is (3 ingredients!) taste much different depending upon the ingredients used? Welcome to cheap vs steep, our playlist where we compare budget ingredients vs gourmet, but this time with a twist, comparing them to the actual brand and homemade too! It’s a 4 – way blindfolded taste test, with surprising results! Enjoy 🙂

Ok so to start off if you are making homemade icing sugar (aka powdered sugar) just add both ingredients into a high powered blender, whizz away and shake, then whizz a few more times, shaking in between and hey presto! That’s it.

For the homemade peanut butter, put the nuts on a lined baking tray, roast at 160fan/180c or equivalent for 20 minutes or until just lightly browned and the oils have released from the nuts slightly. Put into a food blender and pulse to break them down, scraping down the sides and regularly pulsing until the oils release and start to form a peanut butter texture, reserve other nuts for a chunky version, plus add flavouring such as honey to sweeten and oil to loosen but only do in batches. That’s it too!

So whatever method you choose, get some cupcake cases ready. Mix the peanut butter and icing sugar together in a bowl to form a sort of peanut dough. Melt 3/4 of the chocolate in the microwave on 30 second blasts stirring in between, then add the remaining 1/4 and stir through until melted. Pour a little bit of chocolate into the bottom of each cupcake case, just a bit to cover the bottom and form a base. Place in the freezer for a few minutes just to firm it up. Place little dollops of peanut butter onto each chocolate base, leaving a little gap, and cover in remaining chocolate. Place in the fridge to set for at least 40 minutes – that’s it!