I’ve always loved eating Reese’s peanut butter cups when I was a kid. Hence this recipe was inspired by my love for peanut butter cups, and my quest to make it a healthy and gut-friendly version!

In this recipe, I used carob powder instead of cocoa powder. As I’m sensitive to caffeine, carob piqued my interest as it is caffeine-free and touted as a popular cocoa substitute.

I would however say that carob tastes nothing like cocoa 😄 It has its own unique taste and is naturally sweet. Depending on the brand that you buy, you can actually get away with eating carob without any additional sweetener!

A lot of my friends however could not tell that this carob cup was not chocolate. Although carob tastes nothing like cocoa, mixing it with cocoa butter does make it taste a bit more similar to chocolate.

When buying carob, my preference is to buy the roasted version as it has a more nutty and caramel-ly note compared to non-roasted ones.

The centre of this peanut butter cup is basically an energy ball, made only with 3 simple ingredients – peanut butter, dates and oats!

This sugar and caffeine-free peanut butter cup is definitely a rebel in the candy realm where wholesome meets delicious.

Hope you give it a try!

Kitchen Essentials

Rolling pin

Food processor

Cookie cutter

Thermometer

Small muffin tray

Makes 25 pieces

Recipe

Ingredients

Filling

• 134g Peanut butter
• 72g Medjool dates
• 20g Rolled oats

Carob Cup

• 84g Carob powder*
• 196g Cocoa butter (finely chopped)
• Sea salt to sprinkle

*Substitutions:

You can sub cocoa powder to make this a chocolate cup! If so, add 3 tablespoons of liquid sweetener such as maple syrup or honey.

Method

Prepare the filling:

1. Prepare the filling by adding peanut butter, medjool dates and oat flour in a food processor.
2. Blend until the mixture comes together into a ball-like dough.
3. Place the dough onto a piece of baking paper and roll it into a 1cm thick layer.
4. Start cutting out circles using the cookie cutter and repeat the process until you get 25 pieces of filling.

Prepare the carob cups:

1. Create a water bath by filling a small pot with water to about 1/3 high. Bring the water to a boil.
2. Switch the flame off and bring the pot away from the flame to the table counter.
3. Place cocoa butter in a mixing bowl and place it on top of the water bath.
4. Stir the mixture until all the cocoa butter melts. With a thermometer, ensure that the mixture does not exceed 40 degrees celcius.
5. Once all the cocoa butter has melted, add carob powder in small portions and stir until everything is well incorporated.
6. Place the mixing bowl in the fridge to cool the mixture to 25 degrees celcius. This will take about 10 minutes.
7. Reheat this mixture to about 28 degrees celcius and stir. You may want to repeat this cooling and reheating process a second time if the mixture is not smooth.

Assembling the cups:

1. Start filling the base of muffin tray wells with the carob mixture.
2. Place in fridge to allow the mixture to set. About 4 minutes.
3. Take the tray out and place the peanut butter fillings in the middle of the wells.
4. Fill the wells to the top with carob mixture.
5. Sprinkle sea salt on top.
6. Place in fridge to set. About 10 minutes.