Reese’s peanut butter cups are my favorite corner store candy in the entire world. What’s not to love?They are the perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate. While contemplating ideas for going away gifts for friends, these seemed like an appropriate inclusion.

I think I’ll continue to buy Reese’s cups in the future, mostly because these take a ton of time, at least 90 minutes from start to finish, including time to set in the fridge. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time, or rather the patience, to ensure these peanut butter cups looked pretty. I made brownies and pretzel thingers in the same evening as well.

The photo also fails to accurately describe how tasty these turned out. Instead of using milk chocolate chips, I used the semisweet ones already in the pantry.

The directions also to say to coat almost the entire cup with chocolate. I failed to realize how crucial this step would be and just put chocolate in the bottom, to save time of course. I assumed the peanut butter layer would be easy to press into the firm chocolate bottom. Unfortunately, this chocolate layer spent a bit too much time chilling, literally. This extended time in the refrigerator made pushing the peanut butter layer into the chocolate bottom almost impossible.

So the end result might not have been the most pleasant to look at it, but my tummy certainly did not complain. These are my favorite dessert and I firmly intend on improving them, but that might have to wait until next year.

Takeaways: follow the directions.

Who crunched the cups? Kristin, Katie, Carlos, me, my dad, Claire, Wayne and a few others.

January 9, 2014. Day 49. Recipe #59.