These homemade peanut butter eggs are a copycat recipe that taste even better than the Reese’s eggs you buy at the store!
Delight the peanut butter cup lovers in your life with these decadent and delicious peanut butter Easter eggs. They’re so easy to make that you’ll never go back to store bought. Serve your candy eggs with birds nest cookies for a sweet and festive end to your holiday meal.
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In my opinion, Easter candy is the BEST candy of the year. You’ve got creme eggs, all those fun types of jelly beans, peeps, and of course Reese’s eggs. I love Reese’s eggs and decided it was time to try making them at home. I have to say, my homemade peanut butter eggs are even better than Reese’s eggs! They’re not difficult to make and are perfect packaged up for gift giving, class parties and Easter baskets of course. You can even offer other types of homemade candy and treats along with these eggs such as Oreo balls, rocky road fudge and chocolate covered cherries. Looking for more spring dessert ideas? Don’t miss my collections of 30 Easter Dessert Recipes and 22 Peeps Recipes!
Peanut Butter Eggs Ingredients
- Powdered Sugar: The powdered sugar is the binding agent to make that melt-in-your-mouth peanut butter center, and it also adds the perfect amount of sweetness.
- Peanut Butter: It’s important to choose a smooth and creamy peanut butter such as Jif or Skippy for the most authentic flavor. I don’t recommend using the natural style peanut butters as they can separate and make the finished product oily.
- Butter: The butter combines with the peanut butter and powdered sugar to make a rich and creamy filling.
- Chocolate Chips: Choose a high quality chocolate for best results. My favorite chocolate chip brands are Guittard and Ghirardelli.
- Shortening: The shortening thins out the melted chocolate, which makes it easier to coat the eggs evenly when they’re dipped, and it also produces a nice shiny finish when the chocolate sets. If you don’t have shortening, coconut oil will also work.
How to Make Peanut Butter Eggs
To make peanut butter cup eggs, first mix together peanut butter, powdered sugar, butter and water to make a dough. Press the dough into a pan, then let it chill in the refrigerator until it is firm. Use a cookie cutter to cut egg shapes out of the dough. Freeze the eggs so they can harden before they go into the chocolate. melt the chocolate with shortening, then dip the eggs. You can add a little drizzle of chocolate on top for decoration. Let the eggs set, then serve and enjoy.
Tips for the Perfect Dessert
- You want a dough that’s not too crumbly, yet not too sticky. Feel free to add a little more liquid or powdered sugar to get to the right consistency.
- I found an egg shaped cookie cutter on Amazon, but many stores sell them this time of the year.
- You can make your eggs as large or as small as you like. I typically use a larger cookie cutter, about 3 inches, but these would be awesome made as mini eggs too!
- I recommend using a fork to dip your eggs in the chocolate, this way the excess chocolate can run off the tines of the fork.
- Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or waxed paper. This will prevent the chocolate covered eggs from sticking and also makes clean up easier.
Quick Tip
These Reese’s peanut butter cup eggs can be made up to 5 days before you plan to serve them. You can store them covered at room temperature, or if it’s a warm day, put them in the fridge.
Recipe FAQs
Reese’s eggs are a milk chocolate shell filled with a creamy peanut butter mixture. They are only available for a limited period of time each year, typically during the months of March and April.
Peanut butter eggs taste different than peanut butter cups because the chocolate to peanut butter ratio is slightly different. There’s also a different textural contrast because the coating on a peanut butter egg is smooth, whereas there are ridges on a peanut butter cup.
According to public opinion surveys as well as data collected from consumer shopping habits, Reese’s peanut butter eggs are the most popular candy.
Flavor Variations
These eggs are delicious as-is, but you can customize some of the ingredients to suit your tastes.
- Chocolate: This recipe will work with semisweet, milk and white chocolate. If you go with white chocolate, be sure to look for chips that contain cocoa butter and not palm oil.
- Peanut Butter: You can substitute in crunchy peanut butter, just avoid the natural varieties with the oil on top.
- Add-Ins: Feel free to stir in 1/4 cup of rice krispies, mini chocolate chips, mini Reese’s pieces or shredded coconut to the peanut butter dough for a different flavor and texture.
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Peanut Butter Eggs
Ingredients
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
- 1/4 cup butter melted
- 3 cups chocolate chips semi sweet, milk chocolate or white chocolate
- 1 tablespoon shortening
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Place the powdered sugar, peanut butter, butter and 2 tablespoons of water in the bowl of a mixer.
- Beat on low speed until a dough forms. If the dough is too crumbly to hold together, add more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
- Line an 8″ or 9″ square pan with foil. Coat the foil with cooking spray.
- Press the peanut butter mixture into an even layer in the pan, then chill for 30 minutes.
- Remove the peanut butter mixture from the pan by using the edges of the foil as handles and cut out egg shapes with a cookie cutter.
- Place the eggs on a parchment lined sheet pan and freeze for 30 minutes.
- Add the chocolate chips and shortening to a microwave safe bowl. Microwave in 30 second increments until chocolate is melted. Stir until smooth.
- Remove the eggs from the freezer and dip them in the chocolate. Tap against the side of the bowl to remove excess chocolate.
- Place the dipped eggs back onto the parchment lined sheet. Repeat until all eggs are coated. Drizzle and remaining chocolate over the top of the eggs using a small spoon or piping bag.
- Let sit until chocolate is firm, then serve. Eggs may be stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Notes
- You can use any size cookie cutter you like. The eggs shown in the photos are made with a 3 inch cutter but smaller mini eggs would also be fun!! Recipe yield depends on the size of your cookie cutter.
- You can use candy melts in place of the chocolate chips if you prefer; simply omit the shortening.
- Recipe adapted from The Recipe Critic.
I have not allergies, so I use a soy based nut butter. It tastes just like peanut butter. I have just made 2 batches to give out at work. I let everyone know that it has a soy based nut butter in case someone is allergic to soy.
These are so good! Making them again this year!
Can you substitute coconut oil for shortening?
Yes you can!
I have never thought to make them on my own – but that looks so much easier than I would have thought! I’ll have to try this for Easter (and I guess for any holiday shapes since it’s my boyfriends favorite!)
This is a perfect gift for peanut butter lover like me. Even though i try to cut sugar lately, a couple of peanut butter eggs won’t hurt. Thanks for this easy to follow recipe i will definitely add this on my list.
Chocolate & peanut butter are made for each other and oh my do these look divine. Looking forward to making these for the Easter baskets.
I can imagine putting this into lovely containers and giving them to friends! I’m sure they’ll love getting these for Easter.It’s not difficult to make and it doesn’t take much time!
I truly think that the combination of chocolate and peanut butter is basically the best thing ever. I would love to be able to make these eggs for Spring, but then again I would be afraid that I would gain about a million pounds.
Whoa! You made these look so easy to make! I would think that they would be harder. I am impressed!
That is a mouthwatering threats overloaded with chocolate . I would like to try that at home and share it with the fam.
I’m pretty sure the kids would love this! It’s easy to make and it’s the perfect sweet treat for Easter! Package them nicely and you’re good to go! Love how it looks.
These are my favorite Easter candy. Actually anything chocolate peanut butter is my favorite any holiday candy. I just told my daughters I will be making these!
Oh my, these are my husband’s favorite treats in the world. I have never thought about making them from scratch.
I have never attempted to make homemade peanut butter cups. This makes it look easy so I may have to try it. I love peanut butter cups and I know homemade ones have got to be outstanding.
Both my oldest and my husband love the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. These wouldn’t last long around here at all.
OMG! My favorite easter treat but I never even thought of making these myself. How delicious. They turned out amazing and look WAY better than the pre-made packaged version. Amazing job.
I love copycat recipes because you know what ingredients are going in. I think this looks incredible and it’s perfect for Easter. I’m pretty sure everyone’s going to love it.
I would eat SO many of these. Peanut butter chocolate eggs are my weakness. I’ve never tried to make them on my own. I need to try that out!
These homemade candy treats are easy to make. Taste so much better over stove bought.
Chocolate and peanut butter is the best combination in the world. I love these and can’t wait to make some for Easter.