Hazelnut Butter Cups

Hazelnut Butter Cups are recipe #13 of our “24 Days of Christmas” Holiday series where I share 24 recipes over 24 days as a virtual advent countdown to Christmas. Christmas is my favourite holiday, especially when it comes to baking, and I think there are endless creations that we can come up with to reflect the holidays. All 24 holiday recipes will be shared across instagram, tiktok and here on the blog where you can print off the full recipe for your baking pleasure!

The Recipe

Ingredients

See all ingredients needed for these hazelnut butter cups below!

• 2 cups of melted chocolate bakers chocolate of melting wafers work well
• 1/2 cup Hazelnut butter
• sprinkles for decorating
• 12-14 mini muffin liners

Hazelnut Butter Cups Alternatives

I think the alternatives for these hazelnut butter cups are pretty straight forward, but I will lay them out for you any way. For the hazelnut butter, you could easily replace this with any nut or seed butter you love depending on preferences or allergies. Peanut butter, cashew butter or pistachio butter would be my recommendations, but I really don’t think you can go wrong! You do want to make sure you are using a semi-thick nut butter, if it is too runny it won’t set nicely.

You could replace the dark chocolate for any preferred chocolate, as long as it melts well.

Instructions

• Start by grabbing your ingredients and setting them all out to make sure you aren’t forgetting anything.
• Set your mini muffin liners out on a plate.
• Melt your chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave in 20 second intervals stirring often. I recommend melting this in a glass measuring cup with a spout for ease of pouring the chocolate in to the muffin liners. I recommend melting half of the chocolate now for the first layer and then melting the second half when you are pouring the next round of chocolate over the hazelnut butter.
• Pour the melted chocolate in to the bottom of each liner, you want it to be about an inch thick at this point. Once you have chocolate in all the muffin liners, stick this in the fridge for about 20 minutes to harden.
• Once the bottom layer has hardened, spoon about a pea sized amount of hazelnut butter in to the centre of each chocolate and then pour the remaining melted chocolate over top to cover. Once they are all covered, add your favourite sprinkles for decoration and then stick back in the fridge for an hour to set.
• If your house is warm, keep these stored in the fridge and then allow them to come to room temperature before eating. If your house is not overly warm you can easily store these on the counter! Makes 12 mini chocolate cups.

These luscious hazelnut butter cups are made in partnership with Prana Organic Foods and their incredibly delicious organic Italian hazelnut butter, which is perfeclty sweet and nutty without any added alternatives. If you don’t have access to this hazelnut butter you could absolutely make this recipe with any nut butter you have and love. I used Prana Foods chocolatey buttons for this recipe, which melt smoothly and are perfectly rich yet sweet. Again, you can use any chocolate you love but a bakers chocolate that is intended for melting, with a relative cocoa percentage (30 – 40% or higher) will probably work best for you!

You are going to lay out your liners, about 12-14 for the measurements below, and then melt about 1 cup of chocolate. I like to use a glass measuring cup with a spout for pouring as this is the easiest method to get the chocolate in to the muffin liner. Pour about 1 inch worth of chocolate in to the bottom of each muffin liner and thens tick these in the fridge for about 15 minutes. Once that first layer of chocolate has melted, spoon a pea sized amount of nut butter in the centre and then pour more melted chocolate over top to cover.

I decorated these with a combination of festive sprinkles and some cute Royal Icing Decorations I found at my local grocery store. Add whichever decorations you love and then stick these back in the fridge for about an hour to allow them to harden completely.

If you have a warm house, store these in the fridge but allow them to sit at room temperature for a bit before eating, otherwise they may hurt your teeth! You can also just store these on the counter for a few days if your house is not overly warm.

If you love this recipe, check out my peanut butter snowballs here!