Homemade Peanut Butter Eggs

In today’s post: You can make your own version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs at home with just four ingredients – we like them even better than the original! This is an easy Easter treat you can make in about half an hour.

Homemade Reese’s Eggs

These peanut butter eggs taste a lot like Reese’s Eggs except the center is smooth and super creamy. The peanut butter filling gets coated in milk chocolate for the perfect dessert. This is the same recipe I use for Peanut Butter Balls (aka Buckeyes) every Christmas, and since everyone loves them we might as well make them for every holiday, right?

Ingredients

You only need four ingredients for no bake peanut butter balls. I know some people add vanilla extract or sea salt to this recipe, but we think it is perfect with just these four items:

• Peanut Butter: Use a no-stir peanut butter like Jif or Skippy for this recipe. I also prefer using creamy peanut butter because I like the peanut butter balls to have a super creamy texture. Don’t use chunky PB unless you want little nuts in your peanut butter eggs.
• Butter: I use salted butter. If you prefer to use unsalted butter, you may want to add a small sprinkle of salt to the mixture. You’ll need to soften your butter before mixing things together; it’s easiest to do this in the microwave on half power.
• Powdered Sugar: Also known as confectioner’s sugar
• Chocolate: I like to use milk chocolate for these candies, although sometimes I throw in a small handful of semi sweet chocolate chips just to add a bit more richness. You can use whatever flavor of chocolate you prefer – you could even use white chocolate if you’re a fan. To make working with the chocolate super easy, I use Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate melting wafers. They are specially formulated for melting and dipping and set up nicely (and taste great).

How to Make Peanut Butter Eggs

Make the Peanut Butter Centers

Start by softening butter and mixing it with the peanut butter in a bowl. You can use a stand mixer or electric mixer here – or even a wooden spoon if you’d prefer to mix by hand. Mix in the powdered sugar gradually. The peanut butter mixture will be a little crumbly which is just fine. You can give it a few kneads with your hand to bring it all together – it will have the consistency of a stiff cookie dough. Using a cookie dough scoop or a spoon, scoop out a tablespoon and a half of peanut butter dough. Roll it between your hands into a ball.

Gently flatten the ball until it is about half an inch thick, then gently tap the dough into an egg shape. Place peanut butter egg on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet (use waxed paper if you don’t have parchment). When you’ve shaped all the eggs (about 12), chill them until firm – either an hour in the fridge or about ten minutes in the freezer. Don’t leave them in the freezer for too long, you don’t want them frozen solid, just cool and firm.

Melt the Chocolate

Next, you’ll need to melt your chocolate. The chocolate melting wafers I recommended can be melted in the microwave. Place chocolate in a small bowl that is microwave safe and melt in 30 second intervals, stirring thoroughly in between each time in the microwave. It’s very important not to overheat the chocolate, so never go more than 30 seconds at a time and always stir very thoroughly before returning to the microwave. When the chocolate starts looking melted, switch to 15 second intervals.

Dip the Peanut Butter Eggs

Working one at a time, place a peanut butter egg in the melted chocolate. Use a spoon to scoop chocolate over the top of the egg so it’s completely covered. Stick a fork under the peanut butter egg and scoop it up. Tap the fork on the side of the bowl a few times to allow excess chocolate to run off the egg, then drag the bottom of the fork across the edge of the bowl.

Move the egg over to the cookie sheet and use a toothpick to push the egg off the fork onto the parchment paper. Try to work quickly; the chocolate sets up very fast and if you take a long time it will be hard to get the egg off the fork. If you end up with a lot of excess chocolate around the egg (as you see in the photo below) just use a toothpick to pull a line through the chocolate right next to the egg – that will make it easy to break the excess chocolate off after it sets up.

Chill and Finish

When you are done dipping the eggs, place them all in the fridge for about ten minutes to set up. Once the chocolate is firm, pull them back out for some finishing touches. First, there will likely be fork marks on the bottom of the eggs and maybe even some spots with no chocolate, so pick each one up and spoon a little extra melted chocolate over the bottom, then place them back down on the parchment paper. Finally, place the remaining melted chocolate in a small ziplock bag and snip the tiniest bit of a corner off, then “pipe” melted chocolate back and forth across the tops of the eggs. Alternately, you can melt dark chocolate chips to use for the piping. Add sprinkles if desired, and place back in the fridge for ten more minutes. Once the chocolate is set agin, eggs can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature.