Help with first-time peanut butter cup making...

[Emily_R]

Hi all --

So I have plans with a friend to make these amazing-sounding thai-flavor infused peanut butter cups:

Thai Peanut Butter Cups

However since I've never done that kind of chocolate work before, I figured I'd ask for advice here. The recipe seems to suggest using small foil or paper candy cup liners, and brushing chocolate on the inside, piping the filling in, and then adding chocolate on top. I'm wondering about the brushing step -- how thick to make the chocolate layer? How to get the bottom layer of the chocolate to meet up with the top layer? Am I being prematurely neurotic?

Thanks for any help you chocolate masters can provide!

Emily

[Kerry Beal]

Hi all --

So I have plans with a friend to make these amazing-sounding thai-flavor infused peanut butter cups:

Thai Peanut Butter Cups

However since I've never done that kind of chocolate work before, I figured I'd ask for advice here. The recipe seems to suggest using small foil or paper candy cup liners, and brushing chocolate on the inside, piping the filling in, and then adding chocolate on top. I'm wondering about the brushing step -- how thick to make the chocolate layer? How to get the bottom layer of the chocolate to meet up with the top layer? Am I being prematurely neurotic?

Thanks for any help you chocolate masters can provide!

Emily

Ideally I'd temper the chocolate - that will help a lot with getting the layer the thickness that you want. Thickness would be about as thick as that on a regular peanut butter cup - what might that be - perhaps 1/8 of an inch or so? If you have the heavier foil candy cups - with a bit of effort you can pour some tempered chocolate in, then carefully turn it over to pour it back out. What clings to the inside will probably be thick enough. And if it coats right up to the edge, once the chocolate has hardened - you can pipe in the filling to about 1/8 of an inch below the edge, then pipe some more tempered chocolate on top. That will make the bottom and top layer meet.

That being said - futzing with little cups is a potentially messy business and one of the reasons I love polycarbonate molds! You might be better off doing this in a metal mini tart pan - pipe your tempered chocolate in the pan, turn over, tap a bit to get rid of the excess, scrape the top of the pan to get an edge on each of the tart cavities. Into the fridge to harden for about 10 minutes, pipe in your filling, let firm up, pipe some more chocolate on the top. Fridge for another 10 minutes or so - twist the pan like an ice cube tray and pop the pieces out.

[Emily_R]

Thanks for your reply Kerry! I agree futzing with the mini cup liners sounds not fun... Intrigued by your idea of the mini tart pan... I don't need to grease the metal pan -- they will really pop out of there?

[Kerry Beal]

Thanks for your reply Kerry! I agree futzing with the mini cup liners sounds not fun... Intrigued by your idea of the mini tart pan... I don't need to grease the metal pan -- they will really pop out of there?

If the chocolate is in temper it will contract as it cools and pull away from the pan. If it's not in temper - then all bets are off!