I'm not a hockey fan, but I couldn't help getting caught up in the excitement of the recent Stanley Cup playoffs. The entire city went a little nuts after the Washington Capitals made it to the Stanley Cup Finals. The Capital One Arena where the Caps play is only a few blocks away from my office and it was energizing to walk by on game days through a sea of fans rocking the red and screaming "WE WANT THE CUP!" And when the Capitals actually won the Stanley Cup -- for the first time in the franchise's history -- this town of long-suffering sports fans was euphoric and ready to celebrate.
The victory parade took place on a sunny Tuesday morning, along a route that conveniently ended right at my office building. Having heard repeated chants of "We Want the Cup" for weeks beforehand, I decided that the perfect dessert to bring to the office on parade day would be some Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I'm grateful to blog reader Sally, who helpfully suggested that this recipe from Stella Park's Bravetart would be a great way to use up my supply of Cacao Barry Lactée Supérieure milk chocolate.
This recipe requires a bit of work. While the coating is pure milk chocolate, the filling is something along the lines of a homemade peanut praline paste, and that means you need to make your own peanut brittle first. To make the peanut brittle, you heat a mixture of water, corn syrup, sugar, butter, and vanilla bean seeds to 340 degrees; add baking soda and salt; stir in peanuts; and scrape the brittle onto a baking sheet. I had to make the brittle twice. The first time I took it to exactly 340 degrees but it tasted burnt. I decided to make a second attempt, and this time I judged the progress of the caramel strictly by color. I ended up with much better-tasting brittle. The recipe says you can use dry-roasted peanuts or honey-roasted peanuts and I opted for the latter because when given the choice between honey-roasted peanuts and any other variety, I will pick the honey-roasted nuts every single time.
After the brittle was completely cooled, I broke it up into manageable pieces. To make the filling for the peanut butter cups, you grind the brittle in the food processor and then add smooth peanut butter, vanilla, and salt. The recipe says to process the mixture into a smooth paste -- which I would envision to be something with a texture like smooth peanut butter -- but I ended up with a mixture that was oily and slightly gritty. It didn't look great. I put the filling into a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip and then prepared the chocolate.
I tempered the milk chocolate using the cocoa butter method, which is now my go-to technique for tempering. I put twenty-four paper liners in cupcake tins and put some chocolate in each of the cups. The I immediately piped in some peanut butter filling, which forced some of the chocolate up the sides of the cups. I used the rest of the chocolate to cover the filling and chilled the cups until they were set.
The peanut butter cups were perfectly tempered. The cups released effortlessly from the paper liners and the chocolate had a satisfying snap, even at room temperature. The layer of chocolate on the bottom of the cups was paper thin -- in the photo above, you can't even see it. In retrospect, this makes perfect sense, because my milk chocolate couverture was very fluid and I filled the cups while the chocolate was still warm -- so it's not surprising that the filling would sink to the bottom and displace the chocolate. This is unlike the technique I have used to make candy cups in the past, where you coat the bottom and sides of the cups with a thin layer of chocolate and let the chocolate set before adding the filling.
My tasters were huge fans of these peanut butter cups. They were delicious, but I have to say that I prefer the real thing. First, I like the drier filling in a Reese's cup; as I mentioned above, the homemade filling was a bit oily and it was also slightly runny. Second, I prefer the higher filling-to-chocolate ratio in a real Reese's, which typically has a neatly shaped puck of peanut butter filling covered in a thin and even layer of chocolate. As you can see in the photo above, my homemade cups ended up with a lot of solid chocolate around the sides -- another natural consequence of piping in a runny filling while the chocolate was still warm.
I would have preferred less chocolate. Ideally you could accomplish this by creating a thin tempered chocolate shell on the bottom and sides of the cups and letting it set before adding peanut butter filling all the way to the edges and then adding more tempered chocolate on top to seal the cups (this would also allow you to control the thickness of the chocolate layer on the bottom of the cups). But this would either require you to make two separate batches of tempered chocolate, or to make a single large batch and somehow maintain it within a very narrow working temperature range while you wait for the bottom and sides of the cups to set. Both options seem like a lot of hassle.
I might make these again some day, and if I do, I would definitely use dry-roasted peanuts in the brittle. Despite my love for all nuts that are honey roasted, I could detect a faint honey-roasted flavor in the finished product and it seemed out of place. I suppose there's a reason I can't think of any candy bars or chocolates that use honey-roasted nuts. Regardless, this was a fun project, and a great way to celebrate. We won the cup!
Recipe: "Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups" from Bravetart by Stella Parks (note that the recipe in the cookbook is not the same as the recipe Stella shared on Serious Eats several years ago).
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Marshmallow Chocolate Cups," April 8, 2012.
The victory parade took place on a sunny Tuesday morning, along a route that conveniently ended right at my office building. Having heard repeated chants of "We Want the Cup" for weeks beforehand, I decided that the perfect dessert to bring to the office on parade day would be some Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I'm grateful to blog reader Sally, who helpfully suggested that this recipe from Stella Park's Bravetart would be a great way to use up my supply of Cacao Barry Lactée Supérieure milk chocolate.
This recipe requires a bit of work. While the coating is pure milk chocolate, the filling is something along the lines of a homemade peanut praline paste, and that means you need to make your own peanut brittle first. To make the peanut brittle, you heat a mixture of water, corn syrup, sugar, butter, and vanilla bean seeds to 340 degrees; add baking soda and salt; stir in peanuts; and scrape the brittle onto a baking sheet. I had to make the brittle twice. The first time I took it to exactly 340 degrees but it tasted burnt. I decided to make a second attempt, and this time I judged the progress of the caramel strictly by color. I ended up with much better-tasting brittle. The recipe says you can use dry-roasted peanuts or honey-roasted peanuts and I opted for the latter because when given the choice between honey-roasted peanuts and any other variety, I will pick the honey-roasted nuts every single time.
After the brittle was completely cooled, I broke it up into manageable pieces. To make the filling for the peanut butter cups, you grind the brittle in the food processor and then add smooth peanut butter, vanilla, and salt. The recipe says to process the mixture into a smooth paste -- which I would envision to be something with a texture like smooth peanut butter -- but I ended up with a mixture that was oily and slightly gritty. It didn't look great. I put the filling into a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip and then prepared the chocolate.
I tempered the milk chocolate using the cocoa butter method, which is now my go-to technique for tempering. I put twenty-four paper liners in cupcake tins and put some chocolate in each of the cups. The I immediately piped in some peanut butter filling, which forced some of the chocolate up the sides of the cups. I used the rest of the chocolate to cover the filling and chilled the cups until they were set.
My tasters were huge fans of these peanut butter cups. They were delicious, but I have to say that I prefer the real thing. First, I like the drier filling in a Reese's cup; as I mentioned above, the homemade filling was a bit oily and it was also slightly runny. Second, I prefer the higher filling-to-chocolate ratio in a real Reese's, which typically has a neatly shaped puck of peanut butter filling covered in a thin and even layer of chocolate. As you can see in the photo above, my homemade cups ended up with a lot of solid chocolate around the sides -- another natural consequence of piping in a runny filling while the chocolate was still warm.
I would have preferred less chocolate. Ideally you could accomplish this by creating a thin tempered chocolate shell on the bottom and sides of the cups and letting it set before adding peanut butter filling all the way to the edges and then adding more tempered chocolate on top to seal the cups (this would also allow you to control the thickness of the chocolate layer on the bottom of the cups). But this would either require you to make two separate batches of tempered chocolate, or to make a single large batch and somehow maintain it within a very narrow working temperature range while you wait for the bottom and sides of the cups to set. Both options seem like a lot of hassle.
I might make these again some day, and if I do, I would definitely use dry-roasted peanuts in the brittle. Despite my love for all nuts that are honey roasted, I could detect a faint honey-roasted flavor in the finished product and it seemed out of place. I suppose there's a reason I can't think of any candy bars or chocolates that use honey-roasted nuts. Regardless, this was a fun project, and a great way to celebrate. We won the cup!
Recipe: "Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups" from Bravetart by Stella Parks (note that the recipe in the cookbook is not the same as the recipe Stella shared on Serious Eats several years ago).
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Marshmallow Chocolate Cups," April 8, 2012.
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