If you don’t like peanut butter cups, I don’t get you.

This recipe is courtesy of The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone and she offers them up as a delicious alternative to good old fashioned (non-vegan) Reese’s. They’re definitely yummy but be warned: they will not be kind to your waistline (350+ cals a pop!). If you whip up a batch of these, share the love!

Vegan Peanut Butter Cups
Recipe courtesy of The Kind Diet

Ingredients

1/2 cup Earth Balance
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter (unsweetened/unsalted)
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (~10 graham cracker squares)
1/4 cup maple sugar or other granulated sweetener
1 cup vegan, semi-sweet chocolate chips*
1/4 cup non-dairy milk
1/4 cup chopped peanuts, pecans or almonds

*I think these could use a least another 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 1/8 cup of milk. Just my 2 cents.

Note: I read somewhere that adding some rice crispies to the peanut butter mixture makes for a yummy variation here. Just an idea.

Directions

• Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners, set aside
• Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat
• Stir in peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs and maple sugar and mix well
• Remove mixture from heat and evenly divide among the muffin cups (about 2 tbs per cup)*
• Combine the chocolate and milk in another small pan
• Stir over medium heat until the chocolate has melted
• Spoon the chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture
• Top with chopped nuts and place in fridge to set at least 2 hrs before serving

*I’ve made these twice now and I firmly believe that it would be best to place these in the fridge for 15-30 min. before melting and applying the chocolate. When the pb mixture is still very warm, it’s really hard to get the chocolate to spread evenly over the top rather than pool down into the center.

Yield: 1 dozen