Peanut Butter Oat Cups
Chocolate and peanut butter are always found together for good reason. The slight bittersweet edge of dark chocolate is the perfect compliment to the sweet salty nuttiness of peanut butter. Add some maple syrup and a sprinkle of flaky salt and it never fails to delight me. The only problem is that a traditional peanut butter cup never satisfies at just one. It lacks satiety and staying power, which makes it impossible to stop at just one. One day I decided to stir through some sprouted rolled oats into the hot peanut butter and maple syrup mixture before forming and topping with chocolate and after one, I knew I’d solved the problem. By adding the fiber from rolled oats, what was a morish dessert was now a satisfying snack that could tide us over until the next meal! Now, our freezer is never without them.
Directions:
In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the peanut butter, maple syrup and coconut oil together. Take off the heat and stir in the vanilla. Now, with the mixture still hot, stir in the rolled oats. Set it aside to cool a bit. Melt the chocolate chips and tablespoon of coconut oil together. I like to make a double broiler (since we have no microwave 😉) by putting a bowl with the chocolate chips and coconut oil on top of a small pot of water over low heat. The steam from the boiling water will gently melt the chocolate from below without burning! Now, you have your mixture and your chocolate. I like to use a mini muffin pan with liners and put a tablespoon of the pb oat mixture in and then I’ll go back a pour a spoonful of chocolate over top. You could also line an 8x8 pan with parchment and smooth the entire pb oat mixture in it then pour the melted chocolate over top. Either way, let it set in the fridge for an hour before cutting into squares or popping out of the muffin tine. And don’t forget the flaky salt on top of the melted chocolate!
