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Healthy chocolate peanut butter cups (aka copycat Reese’s peanut butter cups) that are vegan, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free. An easy no-bake dessert made with peanut butter, coconut flour, maple syrup, and dark chocolate.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were hands down my favorite candy growing up. Aside from sweet and sour candy, Reese’s were the only chocolate candy I truly cared about. Even though they were my favorite, I was always slightly disappointed with the peanut butter to chocolate ratio, always wishing for more peanut butter.

These homemade chocolate peanut butter cups are my take on the classic Reese’s. They’re made with healthier, real food ingredients and a thick peanut butter layer. Honestly, they taste much better in my opinion. The sweet peanut butter filling basically melts in your mouth.

I highly recommend making a batch of these to have on hand in the fridge or freezer for when a sweet craving hits. Once you make these you’re always going to want to have these peanut butter cups stocked!

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

These peanut butter cups are a healthy homemade treat, made with just six simple ingredients. They’re also relatively low in sugar! Aside from the chocolate coating, the peanut butter cups only have 3 tablespoons of maple syrup. This makes for a slightly sweet filling that lets the peanut butter flavor shine.

I highly recommend using a peanut butter made with just peanuts and salt. My favorite is Santa Cruz Dark Roasted peanut butter. You want the peanut butter to be smooth and drippy. If your peanut butter is cold and not pourable. I recommend warming it up slightly before making this recipe.

I’ve seen so many peanut butter cup recipes that call for a large amount of coconut flour. This isn’t ideal because coconut flour is extremely absorbent, making for a dry, crumbly peanut butter filling. This recipe calls for 1/3 cup of coconut flour for 1 cup of peanut butter. This is the perfect ratio to ensure your filling sticks together but isn’t super dry.

My favorite chocolate for this recipe is a high-quality chocolate bar like Hu Kitchen or dairy-free chocolate chips from Enjoy Life. But feel free to use your favorite dark chocolate!

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (Copycat Reese's)
Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (Copycat Reese's)
Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (Copycat Reese's)

Nourished by Nutrition Facts

Instead of highlighting the health benefits of the main ingredients, I wanted to highlight in general the simple ingredients in these peanut butter cups.

Simple Ingredients

When choosing treats you’re almost always better off getting a freshly made dessert from a high-quality bakery or making it yourself. Why is this? Simply because of the ingredients. Most baked goods from a quality bakery are made with simple, real food ingredients. This is the same for when you’re making something in your own kitchen. You’re not adding extra binders, preservatives, high-fructose corn syrup, etc.

For instance, these peanut butter cups are made with peanut butter, maple syrup, coconut flour, vanilla, salt, and dark chocolate. These are six simple, real food ingredients. Compare this to your classic packaged peanut butter cup, which contains milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, lactose, soy lecithin, pgpr, emulsifier), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, salt, tbhq (preservative), citric acid.

By making the peanut butter cups at home, you can use high-quality ingredients (like this dairy-free chocolate), avoid unnecessary additives and control the amount of added sugar (these peanut butter cups only call of 3 tablespoons of maple syrup for the entire batch!).

Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (Copycat Reese's)

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Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (Copycat Reese’s)

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5 from 11 reviews

Healthy chocolate peanut butter cups (aka copycat Reese’s peanut butter cups) that are vegan, gluten-free, and refined sugar-free. An easy no-bake dessert made with peanut butter, coconut flour, maple syrup, and dark chocolate.

  • Prep Time: 20
  • Total Time: 20 minutes
  • Yield: 11-15 cups 1x

Ingredients

Scale

1 cup creamy peanut butter

3 tablespoons maple syrup

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup dark chocolate (or 3.5 oz dark chocolate bar)

1 teaspoon coconut oil

Flaky sea salt

Instructions

In a medium bowl, combine the peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla and sea salt in medium-sized bowl. Add in the coconut flour and stir until a dough forms.

Use a tablespoon or 1 1/2 tablesspoon cookie scoop measure out the dough. Using your hands form into balls. Slightly flatten the top and smooth the slides. Place a small baking sheet or plate lined with parchment paper. Place the baking sheet or plate in freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up.

To make outer chocolate layer, melt the chocolate chips or broken chocolate bar in small saucepan over the stove or in microwave safe bowl for 30-second intervals until almonst melted; stirring in between. Remove from the heat, and stir in the coconut oil. The unmelted chocolate will melt when stirred.

Once the peanut butter dough has hardened, remove from freezer and use two forks to dip in melted chocolate. Let the excess chocolate drip back into bowl before placing back onto parchment paper. Place chocolate peanut butter cups back in the freezer to harden for 10-15 minutes. If topping with sea salt, remove the chocolate peanut butter cups from the freezer and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. This prevents the salt from melting into the warm chocolate. Place them back in the freezer to harden completely.

Store the harden peanut butter cups in the fridge for up to two weeks or in the freezer for 3 months.

DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE?

I’d love to hear how it turned out for you! Leave a comment below and share a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #nourishedbynutriton.