Ice Cube Tray PB&J Cups

Welcome to yet another edition of........ I Bet You Already Have The Ingredients!
Let's have a warm round of applause for tonight's host: Peanut Butter & Jelly Cups!

Lemme melt on, like some chocolate in the sun!

Because, you know, sometimes you feel like making something but it's like a hundred and eight degrees outside and you take one look at that bright shiny sun trying to kill you and you think "yeah, no, that's not gonna happen" so you snuggle down more in your central air conditioning because that's why God invented central air conditioning.

I know some of you people are summer people, but some of us just want to live in Nunavut.  All the time.

So. Can't leave the house, feel like making something, have a bag of chocolate chips but completely bollocks at dipping things in chocolate...  Let's make candy!

I ran across this recipe at Creativesimplelife.com and kept it up on my internet browser for a few weeks. It just really seems to be a great, easy little recipe that you can adapt for so many things. Like peanut butter and jelly!

Seriously guys, this recipe is so simple, so easy, and it's had the easiest cleanup out of anything I've made so far.  You need an ice cube tray, a medium microwave-safe mixing bowl, another small bowl, a freezer, and a microwave. Ok, and some spoons.

Ingredients

3 cups of chocolate chips
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil (as always I used coconut oil), plus extra to grease the ice cube tray
1/4 cup of peanut butter
1/8 cup of crunchy cereal (I used frosted flakes, but I bet Rice Krispies would be good too)
2 tablespoons of jelly or jam

1) Preheat your freezer to "freeze".
2) "Grease" up your ice cube tray using your vegetable oil. Use your fingers and make sure you get it into every corner.
3) Mash up the peanut butter & cereal together in a small bowl. If using big cereal (like, I dunno, Captain Crunch or something) crush it up first, but otherwise don't worry about getting too technical.
4) Dump 3 cups of chocolate chips into your microwave-safe bowl, and add 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil on top.
5) Microwave your chocolate for 20 seconds, then stir. Continue to microwave in 20 second, stirring intervals, until the chocolate is completely melted through and smooth with no lumps.
6) Pour the chocolate into each well of the ice cube tray, until each well is about 2/3 full. This should take about 2/3 of the chocolate.
7) Spoon approximately 1/4 teaspoon of the peanut butter/cereal mix into each well of chocolate; push it down a little with your finger if you're using ice cube trays with deep wells.
8) Spoon approximately 1/4 teaspoon of jam on top of the peanut butter.
9) Pour out the rest of the chocolate on top to cover up the pb&j.
10) Pop the tray into the freezer, making sure it's resting on a level surface (like, oh, say, 2 loaves of bread sitting side-by-side).
11) Give it about a half an hour to 'set'.
12) Lay out a sheet of waxed paper on your counter (easy cleanup!) and turn your new candies out, just like ice cubes. You can then take a sharp paring knife and trim off the excess chocolate.

Three cups of chocolate chips made exactly enough chocolate for this recipe. And this recipe makes one tray of one dozen peanut butter cups. They're pretty rich though. I couldn't eat more than two. The rest are in sealed containers in my freezer. I'm actually not sure how well they'll freeze in the long term, but, you know, life's fun that way.

Also, while you can of course just do plain peanut butter cups, I highly recommend adding jelly. I found that the strawberry jelly really helped cut down on the richness from all that chocolate, and gave the recipe a pop of brightness.