Cups of magic

No oven needed. These are swell little things to keep around in a big bowl in the fridge. Or well hidden from any chocolate inclined house dwellers.

PRO TIP: A sprinkle of pink or sea salt right on top of these before you chill them is also a delightful addition.

These can be made with any sort of nut butter you can get your hands on. PB is a classic and almond has a nice sweet and mellow twist. Roasted, salted, chunky…all these descriptors of said nut butter are totally invited to this party.

Nut Butter Cups

8 oz chocolate (chips or chunks or even broken up bar is fine…semi-sweet, dark, you pick your poison)

1/4-1/3 c. nut butter

3 +/- T powdered sugar

Set out about a dozen mini muffin liners in a mini muffin tin or just really close together on a baking sheet or surface that can be moved into freezer.

Melt chunked up chocolate in a double boiler over low/medium heat. Make sure to stir and don’t let that chocolate burn.

While the chocolate is melting, mix the nut butter and powdered sugar into a sort of pliable dough. You may need to add more nut butter if it is too dry or more sugar if it is too wet. You want a sweet filling, but not overly so. And you want the mixture to be able to form a ball in your hands easily.

Add about a 1/2 t of the melted chocolate to each liner. Then, with a small spatula or finger, swirl the chocolate so that it comes up the sides of the paper liner. This seems tedious and slightly unnecessary but if you skip this, you will end up with messy nut butter sandwiches that just ooze out of hardened chocolate. Not the worst thing, but we can do better.

Roll the nut butter mixture into medium sized marbles. Slightly squish each nutty marble and deposit one in each prepared liner. This is what the chocolate was meant to do.

Top each cup with more chocolate so that it covers the little nut coin.

Pop in the freezer for about 30 minutes or so. Store in the fridge or just eat the whole lot. No one is watching.