Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
Anyways, I set out to my local Michael's to pick up a few craft things for myself and before I knew it, I was drawn to the Wilton's cake and candy aisle. I immediately spotted the lollipop molds and remembered making those yummy chocolate pops as a kid at daycare. I was young so they weren't always the prettiest, but they were so much fun and delicious too! I saw the candy melts were on sale "Buy Two, Get One FREE" and was convinced to buy a few for old-times sake!
I haven't used candy molds since I was a kid, but thought they'd be a fun summer date night idea for Q and I. Call me cheesy, but like I said we needed some new things to do! I purchased three bags of Wilton's candy melts, this candy mold, a set of decorating brushes, and a 2-pack of squeeze bottles -- for a whopping total of $10. Now that's what I call a cheap (and totally childish, but fun) date night!
We first began by microwaving the candy melts at half-power like the directions suggested. They also suggest to melt them in a decorating bag, but we opted for glass Mason jars. I filled each jar about 3/4 of the way with candy melts and began melting them in the microwave at 30 second intervals.
Our flavor choices: white chocolate, light cocoa, and peanut butter
While that was going on, Q filled our crockpot with water and plugged it in. We set it to "keep warm" and I am so glad we did this in combination with the mason jars. We were able to place our three melted chocolates into the hot water and they remained melted and smooth the entire time. Tip: Make sure to fill your crockpot with enough water to go up 3/4 way on the jars.
For our first round, we decided to make them all solid chocolate using only one flavor for each. We simply used the spoons to fill each mold shell with melted chocolate. We also filled the squeeze bottles with melted chocolate, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. After about 5 minutes, the chocolate would clog up the tip and was no longer melted so we decided to just stick with the spooning method.
After you fill the entire mold with melted chocolate, tap it a few times to get rid of air bubbles. Then stick the tray in the freezer for 5 minutes. You'll know it's done when the plastic mold looks "frosty" (rather than clear plastic) and the chocolate has completely hardened.
Q was in charge of popping out all the chocolates by simply inverting the tray and slightly pushing on each mold from the bottom. We later found out it works just as well to invert the tray on top of a sheet of wax paper, hit the bottom of the tray once, and they pretty much all come out on their own!
For our next round, we decided to make filled chocolates, similar to Reese's peanut butter cups. These were simple to make but they take a little bit longer since you have to freeze them three separate times. First, you'll want to fill each shell with just a little bit of chocolate. Use one of the decorating brushes to paint thickly up the sides of the shell and then evenly cover the bottom of the shell. Tap and freeze for 5 minutes.
Once frozen, remove the tray from the freezer and do your filling. Simply spoon in enough of the melted peanut butter to make an even middle layer, tap to get rid of air bubbles, and freeze for 5 minutes. Then finish the top layer by spooning the same chocolate as you did for the bottom layer. Tap and freeze again for 5 minutes. Then pop all the candies out of the mold!
Just a little warning...these do come right out of the freezer so watch your teeth when you bite into one! I did notice the white chocolate ones are a lot harder to bite into than the chocolate ones. I would hate for someone to break their tooth because these are pretty rock solid!
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