Uh-oh.
You're studying and you ran out of Reese's peanut butter cups.

Wait -- don't go to 7-11 at this hour! Sheesh, don't you know how many weird people are out at this time of night? You have peanut butter and chocolate in the house, right? That's really all you need... that, and something to put it in.

Lainey's Replacement Reese's

    * 20 cupcake liners - should be mini, but use what you have.
    * 1 cup dark chocolate chunks, or 12 ounces of 70% dark chocolate, broken
    * 2/3 cup natural creamy peanut butter + 2 T to add to the melted chocolate
    * 1/4 cup powdered sugar + 2 T in which to roll log
    * 2 T pure vanilla extract
    * 1 T ground ginger, optional
    * optional pinch fine salt - if you've got unsalted peanut butter

First, set out your cupcake liners on a cookie sheet. You'll have to move all together when they are filled, and you'll regret your messy hands later if you don't do this step now.

Then, melt your chocolate. Break your bar into small chunks and microwave on high, stirring every thirty seconds. I checked my chocolate every thirty seconds, and it took a minute and a half in our microwave to achieve meltage. When the first chunks melt, simply add two tablespoons of peanut butter and stir until the rest of the chocolate melts, too. Melting the remaining chocolate this way prevents burning and allows the chocolate to keep its tempering.

Next, spoon one teaspoon of melted chocolate into the bottom of each cupcake liner. If you're using mini-liners, you might want to tip each liner to coat the bottom and sides with chocolate. If you have bigger cupcake liners, don't worry about this step.

Then, in a separate bowl, combine the rest of the peanut butter, the powdered sugar, and the vanilla. The peanut butter stiffens up pretty fast, so I turned it out on a plastic cutting board to knead it for a minute or two, to be sure that the sugar was well incorporated. I rolled it into a log and cut twenty one inch-wide slices from the roll. Natural peanut butter won't let you fiddle with it for too long without getting even less malleable, so be fairly quick about this step!

Next, take each of the little slices and flatten them. Set them right in the middle of the first chocolate layer.

If you need to, you can zap your choolate for another ten to fifteen seconds in the microwave. Then, add one generous tablespoon of powdered ginger to the last of your  chocolate, stir it thoroughly, and then ladle one generous tablespoon of chocolate atop each of the peanut butter slices. Be sure to cover all the peanut butter.

And that's really it. Chill your beauties in the fridge for forty minutes to an hour. They set beautifully -- have that distinctive peanut butter cup fluting on the edges when the paper is pulled away -- and melt on your hands almost immediately, so by all means, pop that sucker into your mouth!

Happy Studying!
Lainey