Sure, Christmas and Valentine's Day candy is great, but nothing beats Easter candy. How can you even compare candy hearts to Peeps or Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs? And yes, you can have the irresistible combo of peanut butter and chocolate any time of year with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, but it's not the same as finding these Easter eggs in your Easter basket. You don't have to wait until spring to make these delightful Easter treats, though, with these copycat Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs.
Why would you want to make your own chocolate peanut butter eggs? First, instant gratification. Easter is a long way off, my friends, especially when the first robin hasn't appeared to mark the coming of spring yet. Second, you want to control how much sugar is in your favorite Easter candy. Third, if you've got food allergies in your family, the right copycat recipe is like a special delivery from the Easter Bunny.
We've gathered some great no bake recipes for homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, all ready for DIY treat making and geared toward a range of recipe types. Each of these recipes take about an hour total time to make, but that's mostly chill time. All of these peanut butter Easter eggs are best stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
Homemade Peanut Butter Eggs
This copycat recipe is the closest to the original Easter dessert in all its glory. You'll need creamy peanut butter, unsalted butter, light brown sugar, powdered sugar, milk chocolate chips and vegetable shortening. Make the peanut butter mixture by combining the peanut butter, butter and brown sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, then carefully stir in the powdered sugar.
While the ingredients for each of these recipes are a little different, the technique for putting them together is pretty much the same. Once you have your peanut butter filling, shape it into eggs and place them on a baking sheet lined with wax or parchment paper and refrigerate the whole cookie sheet with peanut butter eggs for at least 30 minutes. Melt the chocolate and shortening together, then carefully dip each egg into the melted chocolate until covered. Let the chocolate covered eggs sit in the fridge for another 30 minutes. Get the recipe here.
Healthier Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs
Of course nobody eats chocolate peanut butter eggs for health reasons, but that doesn't mean they have to be unhealthy. This version uses only four ingredients: peanuts, honey or maple syrup, dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate and coconut oil. Put the peanuts in the food processor with the sweetener, mix the melted chocolate with the coconut oil, and then get them all together in guilt-free chocolate-dipped egg shapes. Get the recipe here.
Dairy and Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Eggs
This version is somewhere between the healthy and the allergy friendly recipes; it's really a little bit of both. You use a little bit of butter or coconut oil in with the peanut butter, along with coconut sugar, to make the peanut butter filling. While you can use any kind of chocolate chip, the recipe calls for Enjoy Life chocolate, which is both really good chocolate and is free from the eight main allergens (plus several others). It's a good call in any recipe where you need allergy-friendly chocolate. Get the recipe here.
Allergy-Friendly, Nut-Free Reese's Eggs Recipe
One thing different this copycat Reese's peanut butter eggs recipe does is treat the peanut butter mixture almost like a dough. You roll it out and use an egg-shaped cookie cutter or something similarly shaped, for the center of the egg. It's also allergy-friendly, meaning if you have kids or adults in the house (or school or church) with allergies, this is the recipe you want to try. Get the recipe here.
