Recipe Of The Day: Peanut Butter Chocolate Eggs

Easter is all about the eggs, baby. Hard-boiled eggs dyed in bright spring shades, eggs turned into herby omelets and ham frittatas for Easter brunch and, of course, candy eggs in Easter baskets. Sure, you can buy your Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, Cadbury Eggs and caramel eggs at the store — but what's the fun in that?

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You can easily make your own copycat Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs at home! Read on for tips, or jump to the video or recipe.

Truly, peanut butter eggs only require a few basic baking ingredients: peanut butter, confectioners' sugar, butter, melting chocolate wafers and a little bit of vegetable oil. Make sure you use chocolate wafers for melting and not chocolate chips — the latter will make the end result extremely soft and prone to melting, which is not what you want here. And if you really want to replicate Reese's famous Peanut Butter Eggs, use Reese's brand peanut butter (but really, any brand will be good).

This peanut butter chocolate egg recipe doesn't require an egg-shaped candy mold, but it does require a little bit of know-how. First of all, after mixing together the peanut butter and confectioners' sugar, put it in the fridge for at least two hours but ideally overnight or up to one day.

The egg-shaping process works much better when working with chilled ingredients, so it's also important to work quickly when shaping the eggs. If you have one, an oval-shaped cookie cutter could help to speed along this process, but we used our hands to shape them and found that worked well too.

A tip: Get your egg close to the desired shape, put it on the wax paper and then smooth it out with your fingers. Freeze when done shaping the eggs.

For dipping, it's also important to work with rock-hard peanut butter eggs. Take them out of the freezer about 10 at a time to dip.

You can then drizzle them with melted peanut butter wafers, dyed white chocolate wafers for some Easter flare or decorate them with sprinkles or sugar decorations. Have fun with it and do what you see fit! And after you're done with that, use more chocolate for these delicious chocolate dessert recipes

Not sure how to make it work? Watch the video below (via The Daily Meal's YouTube channel).

Peanut Butter Easter Eggs

This recipe is by Stacy Sterner of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and was originally published in The Morning Call.

Ingredients:

  • 2 (12.5-ounce) jars creamy peanut butter 
  • 4 cups confectioners' sugar
  • 1/4 pound (8 tablespoons) butter
  • 1 cup chocolate wafers, milk or dark
  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
  • A few peanut butter wafers (optional)

Directions:

Step 1: In a large bowl, mix 2 (12.5-ounce) jars creamy peanut butter, 4 cups confectioners' sugar and 1/4 pound (8 tablespoons) butter. The batter should be creamy, but thick. If not thick enough, gradually add a little more confectioners' sugar. This batter must be refrigerated for at least 2 hours before working with it, and preferably a day ahead.

Step 2: Once the batter is chilled, take small amounts out of the fridge, and roll into small balls and shape into eggs. Store the eggs in a plastic container in layers that are separated by waxed paper. Freeze. When eggs are completely frozen, take a few out at a time to dip into chocolate.

Step 3: To melt the chocolate, place 1 cup chocolate wafers into a small bowl (glass, not plastic) with 1 teaspoon vegetable oil. The oil adds a little shine to the chocolate. Melt in the microwave slowly in 45-second increments, until completely melted. Dip frozen eggs, a few at a time, into the chocolate.

Step 4: If you like, after dipping, you can drizzle the eggs with melted peanut butter wafers (melted in the same manner as the chocolate). Let cool on a waxed-paper-lined cookie sheet in a cool place. The chocolate should set almost immediately if the eggs were frozen before dipping. Store in plastic containers either in the refrigerator or in the freezer until ready to use.

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