6 Ingredient Peanut Butter Eggs

Ingredients in Peanut Butter Eggs

These homemade peanut butter eggs are really easy to make. I started with the filling recipe for my peanut butter bars, and dialed back on the butter a little and removed the cream from the recipe to give a thicker filling. These are still a little soft and creamy, as I packed them with as much peanut butter as I could.

This recipe makes about 30 peanut butter eggs, and you already probably have most of the ingredients at home already:

• Butter. I used salted butter, but unsalted will work just as well. They do need a good amount of salt to offset the sugar and make the peanut butter flavour shine through, so make sure you do taste and adjust salt in the recipe.
• Peanut Butter. I used a creamy peanut butter to make these peanut butter eggs - you want one that isn't a 'natural' style as they tend to separate out. I used a smooth emulsified peanut butter that had salt added - make sure that if your peanut butter is unsalted that you again taste the filling mixture and adjust for salt.
• Powdered sugar / icing sugar. Make sure that this is sifted so that your peanut butter mixture is not lumpy.
• Salt. Salt is always important in sweets, but especially in this recipe as we need it to offset the sweetness of the filling, and it goes so well with the chocolate. Make sure that you taste the filling.
• Chocolate. Use a good quality dark chocolate here - I used Whittaker's 72%. Dark chocolate offsets the sweetness of the filling and makes a lovely smooth dipping chocolate. Do not use chocolate chips as they are designed not to melt.
• Neutral oil. This is important to help smooth out the chocolate that you are dipping the peanut butter eggs in. It gives a nice smooth shiny finish, without the need for fussing around with tempering chocolate. I used rice bran oil but anything neutral tasting is fine here. Something like coconut oil will work too.

How to Make Peanut Butter Eggs

The steps for making peanut butter eggs are super simple, and you can do them as you have time - they will be perfectly fine parked in the freezer until you are ready for the next step!

• Make the filling. This step is super quick - basically just whip everything together in a large bowl. If you are shaping the eggs by hand, you can do this straight after you have mixed the filling, then place in the freezer to chill.
• Roll out the filling. I like to do this between two sheets of parchment paper, and I use silicone rolling guides to help me make the filling an even thickness. Roll to 1cm thick. Pop the filling into the freezer for about 30 minutes to firm up.
• Cut filling shapes. If you are using the cutter method, cut out eggs from the peanut butter filling and place onto a parchment paper sheet to chill again. you can press together any scrap pieces, re-roll, then cut out more eggs. I got 30 from my filling using a cookie cutter that is 5cm / 2 inches high
• Dip the peanut butter eggs. Set up your dipping station, and dip the eggs into the melted chocolate and then chill until set.
• Drizzle. I like to use any leftover chocolate to add a drizzle to the peanut butter eggs - this is a super easy way to make them look really fancy and use up extra chocolate! You could also add in sprinkles here or a little bit of flaky sea salt.

How to Break up The Workload

These peanut butter eggs are great to make ahead, as you can break up the workload into several steps. While I call for a 30 minute chill time in the freezer, this can be up to overnight - so can the second chilling step after you shape the filling into eggs or cut out your egg shapes.

Just throw them into the freezer, and continue with the recipe when you are ready! They also store super well in the freezer for up to a month in an airtight container for a quick grab and go dessert.

How to dip Peanut Butter Eggs in Chocolate

There are a few tips and tricks for dipping things in melted chocolate. It's going to get messy, so make sure you do this in an area that you can easily wipe clean, and just know it gets a bit hectic.

• Melt your chocolate. I used to do this in the microwave, but found that my mixture would get bubbles in it which would then set on the surface of the peanut butter eggs, so I switched to melting it over a double boiler - you can make one by placing a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Make sure that the bowl does not touch the water. Stir together until nice and melted.
• Re-warm if needed. The other advantage of using a double boiler is that if your chocolate starts to set up, you can just place the bowl back over the water for it to melt back to the right consistency.
• Make sure your chocolate isn't too warm. You want the chocolate to be a liquid consistency (because of the oil it will be quite loose), but not too hot as it will melt your eggs. Leave it to stand for a little before using if it is too warm.
• Only work with a few eggs at a time. You don't want the peanut butter eggs to fall apart when you dip them into the chocolate, so I prefer to keep them in the freezer until I am ready to dip them, then bring out 3-4 at a time.
• Have everything set up. Get all your bits and pieces ready to go for your dipping station - your melted chocolate, a parchment paper lined baking sheet for placing the finished eggs, lots of paper towels or a tea towel, and two forks and a toothpick or skewer to help remove the eggs.

Chocolate Dipping Troubleshooting

There's really no super clean or neat way to dip things in melted chocolate, and these peanut butter eggs are no exception. Things get messy. You'll end up with some super messed up ones. It happens.

The best way I have found to dip these eggs is to use either two forks or a fork and a toothpick. Drop the egg into the chocolate, turn it over, then fish it out with the fork. Give the fork a really good shake to make sure any excess chocolate drips off - I like to tap the fork on the side of the bowl to help with this.

Then, carefully slide the egg off onto the parchment paper using the toothpick. You want to work fairly quickly here - you don't want the egg to set to the fork.

If you find your peanut butter eggs are falling to bits, make sure that they are nice and cold from the freezer, and also make sure that your chocolate is not too hot.

If your chocolate seems to be hard to work with, it may have cooled down slightly - just re-warm it until it is a nice loose consistency.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tools and equipment do you use?
You can find a full list of the tools and equipment I use on my products page

Can I coat these in white / milk chocolate?
I haven't tried - I have only tested these with dark chocolate. White or milk would definitely work but it will result in a super sweet peanut butter egg, and you may need to adjust the quantity of oil in the melted chocolate mixture to give you a nice dipping consistency.