Over the years Valentines day has often been the tipping point in my wife and I's attempts to keep our new year's resolution to start and keep healthy habits. Last year was the first time in a long time that we managed to keep to our eating plan on Valentines day and beyond.
One of the ways we manage to do that is prepping for things like Valentines day in advance. So on a lazy Sunday afternoon I made a bunch of different candies. This post is about peanut butter hearts, but you could sub in the caramel from the Trim Healthy Pecan Squares if you were wanting more of a crunch to it. This recipe is a modified version of Skinny Chocolate recipe with my own additions. If you just want the original recipe check out the Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook.
To make this recipe in bulk you'll need:
4 Cups of Coconut Oil
2 Cups of Cocoa Powder
2 cups sugar free peanut butter
I wanted to make really big shareable size candy hearts. A form of that size seemed really expensive when we had a bunch of heart shaped cookie cutters sitting around. So I decided to improvise. To make big candy hearts with cookie cutters you'll need.
2 Metal Cookie Sheets that stack
Ice
Aluminum foil
1 or more Heart Shaped Cookie cutters
8 Cup or bigger mixing bowl (preferably with a pour spout) for chocolate Whisk
4 cup or bigger mixing bowl for peanut butter
6 Cup or bigger cooking pot.
Assuming your coconut oil is solid, place your 4 Cups of Coconut oil in the pot and put it on high to get it melting.
While that's working place the first cookie sheet on the counter and fill it with ice.
Next place the other cookie sheet on top of it. What this is going to do is make the surface you are pouring your chocolate on very cold causing it to setup quickly to reduce leaking out of the cookie cutter.
Then lay out the aluminum foil to cover the cookie sheet. This is important because the chocolate can for a tight bond to the cookie sheet if you aren't careful. Then you might tear up or break the heart getting it off of the cookie sheet. With the aluminum foil you can actually wrap the chocolate up in in the foil when it's set to help it keep in the freezer until the big day.
Then add the cocoa powder and 1/2 cup of gentle sweet to the mixing bowl.
Once the coconut oil is fully melted pour it into the mixing bowl and whisk vigorously until it is fully blended. Note that you'll want to whisk it up again every time you go to pour the chocolate to make sure the ingredients stay well mixed.
Then with one hand press down on a cookie cutter as best you can while you pour chocolate into it. Once it's as full as you like it, set the mixing bowl down and use both hands to press the cookie cutter into the aluminum foil for 60 seconds. That will allow the bottom to harden up enough that it won't leak and you can fill the next one.
While these are cooling mix the other half cup of gentle sweet with the two cups of peanut butter until it is smooth.
Then spoon onto the solid chocolate. Note that if you warm the peanut butter up in the microwave it will pour more smoothly and be less sticky. However, it will then make more of a peanut butter sandwich were you can see the peanut butter layer on the sides. So for these I didn't warm up the peanut butter and dealt with the stickiness. As you can see it wasn't particularly smooth.
Once you have the peanut butter in place you can pour chocolate over them until it completely covers the peanut butter. Let them cool off for about 30 minutes. Then you can pop them out of the cookie cutter and wrap them in foil and put them in the freezer to give a sweet to your sweetie on that special day.
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