Homemade Nut Butter Cup Recipe (with Coconut Oil!)
Welcome to the Festival of Food Carnival. In celebration of Valentine’s Day, we’re sharing recipe ideas for “love foods” or foods to share with loved ones. Hosted by Diary of a First Child and Hybrid Rasta Mama, you’re welcome to join us next time, or if you have a previously published recipe you’d like to share, add it to the linky below.
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Our family is dairy and egg free, which means that we do a lot of our cooking from scratch. One of the prepackaged treats I missed when we initially cut out dairy was peanut butter cups. But I discovered a way to make dairy free, egg free, and gluten free peanut butter cups that taste even better than the ones loaded with HFCS and preservatives.
It all started when I pinned a recipe for coconut oil chocolates that has only four ingredients: coconut oil, cocoa powder, raw honey, and vanilla.
The chocolates are delicious enough to eat alone, but I wanted more. I wanted peanut butter cups.
So I bought a cute little chocolate heart mold and went to work.(I got my mold at Ikea, but here’s a chocolate heart mold at Amazon for less than $10.1) The heart shaped mold makes this easy recipe perfect for a sweet Valentine’s Day treat!
The recipe below is easy and much healthier for you than store brought nut butter cups. You can use any kind of nut butter you desire (although I have not tried with some of the thinner store bought nut butters, like Sun Butter).
I prefer to use natural peanut butter with no salt or sugar added. Besides peanut butter, I think these treats would be especially delicious with almond, cashew, or hazelnut butter. Yum! And if you haven’t tried making your own nut butter, give it a whirl. (While you’re at it, you can also make your own vanilla!)
Nut Butter Cups Ingredients
1 cup Coconut oil
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3-4 tbsp raw honey (to taste)
1-2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
Approx. 1/3 cup nut butter
Directions
- Prepare your chocolate2: “Melt the coconut oil and add the honey.3 Whisk and add the cocoa powder” and vanilla. Using a spoon, pour chocolate into your chocolate mold, filling up each cup not quite halfway. Whisk while you pour to keep the honey from separating (it probably will anyway, but that’s ok).
- Put chocolate mold in the fridge for about 30 minutes to let the chocolate harden.
- Using 2 spoons (or a spoon and your finger, ahem), scoop and flatten dollops of nut butter onto each of your chocolate mold cups. Be sure not to use too much nut butter, or your hearts will not want to hold their shape when you pop them out of the mold. The amount of peanut butter I used in the picture to the right is too much.4 Oops!
- Whisking your remaining liquid chocolate, spoon it on top of the nut butter, filling each cup to the top.
- Refrigerate another hour or so.
- Pop the nut butter cups out of the mold and enjoy.
- Mercedes at Project Procrastinot shares Well-Traveled Muffins, A Family Recipe, which is the recipe that’s followed her around the globe and won her husband over: banana-carrot muffins. You can also fine Mercedes on Facebook.
- Mari at Honey on the Bum shares Peek-a-boo, I love you!, a recipe she loves because her kids love it and love to help make it, and it can change as the seasons and holidays change with just the switch of a cookie cutter.
- Angela at EarthMamas World shares a delicious vegetable black bean soup recipe. She adds a special Valentines Day twist for her kids! You can also find Angela on Facebook.
- Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama shares two super easy coconut themed Valentine’s treats; No Bake Strawberry Cheesecake Truffles and Chocolate Coconut Macaroon Truffles. You can also find Jennifer on Facebook.
- Sarah at Why Food Works shares WFW: Know your numbers – the IMPORTANT ones!. Love your health first – heart disease is a big problem in America, and eating a higher fiber diet can improve our cardiovascular function: try Sarah’s Nutty Quinoa Pilaf to show your loved ones you care about their hearts! You can also find Sarah on Facebook.
- Amy at Anktangle shares her recipe for simple and delicious coconut macaroons. They’re sugar-free, gluten-free, and most importantly: free of any processed additives you’ll find in many store-bought desserts. You can also find Amy on Facebook.
- Lindy at Poppy Soap Co. shares a cheeky recipe for Chocolate Love Waffles! These are sure to be a Valentine’s Day hit! You can also find Lindy on Facebook.
- Jorje of Momma Jorje shares a painful recipe that required some love for her to make. You can also find Jorje on Facebook.
- Luschka at Diary of a First Child lists the ten foods commonly regarded as aphrodisiac foods, and shares three recipes that include eight of those foods, with a printable menu for your easy three course dinner. You can also find Luschka on Facebook.
- In a guest post at Hobo Mama, Crackerdog Sam shares his son’s favorite soft pretzel recipe: half whole-wheat and a lovely upgrade to a mall treat.You can also find Hobo Mama on Facebook.
- Need a wholesome treat for your honey’s sweet tooth? Dionna at Code Name: Mama shares her recipe for amazing homemade heart-shaped nut butter cups. With natural nut butter and coconut oil chocolates, these are two great tastes that will certainly taste great – and healthy – together. You can also find Code Name Mama on Facebook.
- I just noticed that my Ikea mold says “for water only”; I assume they just don’t want people to pour hot candy-making liquid into it. ↩
- By the way, I’ve also made the coconut oil chocolate recipe and added about 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut – it was fantastic. I’d also be interested in trying the above recipe with caramel, but I have yet to try my hand at making dairy free caramel. Someday! ↩
- I prefer to melt my coconut oil with the honey already added. ↩
- For the record, the picture at the top of this post is of my chocolates with shredded coconut. I added too much peanut butter, so my chocolates did not want to pop out prettily enough to photograph. But they’re still delicious ;) I have, however, made them with less PB, and they came out of the mold just fine. It works, really! ↩
Keep your nut butter cups refrigerated, as the chocolate tends to melt at room temperature. I store mine in a glass container with a lid.
Makes about 2 dozen heart-shaped nut butter cups.
Please take a moment to visit the blogs of our other Festival of Food participants. The links in this list will be live by the end of the day, as participants are all in different time zones.
14 Responses to:
"Homemade Nut Butter Cup Recipe (with Coconut Oil!)"
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Do you think this would work in a pan if I have someone strong to cut them into squares after they have hardened? :)
Yes! I’ve done it!
These sound great and worth the effort! I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of making my own vanilla…yum! Will definitely have a go at these.
Try them frozen. YUM!
Thanks so much for sharing this recipe! I’ve been trying to move more towards a semi-vegan lifestyle- definitely trying to cut most sugar and dairy from our diet. These look good! They look like they should help my cravings :)
goodness, these look good. i learned a long time ago that adding powdered sugar to the peanut butter helps make that light texture, but i have been too nervous to try the whole cup. i’m definitely going to try these. peanut butter cups with dark chocolate…probably my most favorite treat ever. :) thank you so much for the inspiration. i have the same mold from ikea, my kids will love this.
Ohhh – powdered sugar to the PB, huh? I’ll have to add that in next time! Thanks for the tip!
Well you KNOW I love this recipe! It has all my favorites! Thanks for joining this month’s Carnival! Your recipe made a great addition!
Oh, yum! These look delicious. Must get to Ikea…
I was just thinking about how I miss my Grandma’s peanut butter cups (and Sam’s adapted recipe of same) and wondering how we could do something similar that doesn’t involve grains and sugar. Score!
Oh my goodness, these sound amazing!! What is even better is that I have ALL of the ingredients in my kitchen. This will be tomorrows post-Valentines Day treat, thank you!
Yum, I’ll have to try this.
These look fantastic! I only recently discovered ‘raw’ chocolate and these are a great way to try it! Thanks for joining the carnival!
These are so easy and yummy! We just made them today. Thank you :)
Nice. I would like to try this. It’s still February so… Here we go.