Peanut Butter Cups

I can’t think of a better way to begin than with a recipe for vegan chocolate peanut butter cups…can you? The idea was born one snowy Tuesday night while I was in class half listening to my professor talking about Frank O’Hara. What I was really doing was browsing the web looking for gluten free vegan recipes I could bake for my friend for Christmas. “What, Christmas?” That’s right, I was temporarily laid off from my job (thankfully I’ve started back again) and as a result, was extremely short on cash over the holidays. One day while I was watching my friend’s eyes glaze over as she ate a gluten free store bought cookie, it hit me. Why not bake her a present? I know how much she appreciates gluten free baked goods, as they’re hard to come by, and who doesn’t love free food? Tonight I made her Peanut Butter Cups, and I have to credit Have Cake, Will Travel (http://havecakewilltravel.com/) for the peanut butter cup recipe, as much as I’d like to imagine I came up with such deliciousness myself.

I made a few changes however. I didn’t have mini cupcake liners, so I used medium sized ones (that just means bigger peanut butter cups…too bad, eh). I also couldn’t find chocolate chips at my grocery store that didn’t have milk ingredients (grrr). So I used some dark chocolate from a box that should have been used for fondue.

Here’s the recipe:

7 medium sized cupcake liners
7 oz of dark dairy free chocolate
½ a cup of natural peanut butter, as well as 2 tablespoons to add to the chocolate you melt to line the cups
1/ 4 of a cup powdered sugar
½ a teaspoon of vanilla extract (hmm as I type this I realize I put 2 teaspoons in due to misreading the recipe…however mine tasted delicious I assure you)
Pinch of sea salt (my peanut butter is salt free, so if your PB already has salt maybe skip this)

First, I chopped up my chocolate, plopped in 2 tablespoons of PB, and microwaved it for 1 minute, stirred it, and microwaved it again for another minute.
Let it cool just a bit if it’s too hot.

Using a teaspoon, scoop some chocolately goodness into the cups, and spread so the shell is covered (not too thickly, not too thinly…just right), making sure to leave a couple tablespoons to cover the filling at the end.

Chill in the fridge while you get the filling ready.

Stir PB, vanilla, salt and sugar, and pack mush into a firm ball in the bowl.

Scoop an even amount into the cupcake liners, and cover with a bit of the left over melted chocolate. Chill it in the fridge for a bit (around an hour) and then enjoy!!!!

So amazingly good, I hope my friend likes them!

All throughout, I was listening to some Lou Barlow, and Mermaid Avenue, the joint effort of Billy Bragg and Wilco I picked up last night at Sonic Boom. Nothing beats good tunes and vegan chocolate!

First Day!

Hi there!
Today is my first day trying my hand at this blogging business. I'm a fairly recent vegan, having made the jump about a year and a half ago. I'd always toyed with the idea, but I never realized how simple and easy the change could be. Then, after a family member discovered food sensitivities to wheat, dairy, sugar, just to name a few, I became interested in recipes that could include everyone, and still be delicious. Now, I try my best to eat earth and animal friendly. Why blog about it you ask? One of the best resources I used for finding recipes and educating myself in vegan cooking was vegan blogs on the internet. I found myself spending vast amounts of time scrolling and drooling over online recipes, and developed an appreciation for the amazing photography that helped to draw me in. So why not start my own? I'll be posting my attempts at trying new recipes, and hopeful someone (as well as myself) will find this ol' blog a little helpful, and at the very least, enjoyable.