Secret Ingredient Chocolate Peanut Butter Easter Eggs
This recipe is gluten free, dairy free & refined sugar free and with a secret (healthy) ingredient!
About This Recipe
This Easter I wanted to create an Easter egg that was filled with something delicious, rather than disappointingly hollow when you bite into it.
Deciding on the perfect surprise filling was easy.
Most of us will agree that chocolate and peanut butter are one of the best combinations out there.
Reece's peanut butter cups are a testament to that! What better to fill an Easter egg with than creamy, salty peanut butter?
When creating desserts my mission is to re-appropriate something delicious, but less healthy, that I used to love in my childhood.
The result must be a far healthier version of an old favourite, with absolutely no taste sacrifice.
This means playing around with healthier ingredients until magic suddenly happens.
This recipe was no exception.
When you read the ingredients for the peanut butter dough filling you may be surprised to find chickpeas in there.
This is certainly not an ingredient you would expect to find in a sweet recipe, but don't cast this one aside just yet.
The chickpeas are actually essential for providing the doughy consistency of the Easter egg filling.
Without them, it would be impossible to mould the dough into egg shapes.
Surprisingly, they don’t change the flavour of the dough at all, but simply provide it with structural support (and a sneaky protein boost).
The peanut butter dough tastes just like cookie dough so could also be used as raw cookie dough bites.
I bet they would be great with some dark chocolate chips mixed though and then rolled into balls and covered in coconut...
When you make the chocolate shell for these easter eggs you are actually making real chocolate from scratch, but it couldn’t be simpler.
It just involves warming some cacao butter and then mixing through some cacao powder and maple syrup.
With easter only a few days away, it is the perfect time to throw together a batch of these chocolate peanut butter eggs.
You won’t look at a hollow easter egg the same way again.
You will need:
For the peanut butter dough:
- 400g chickpeas
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup maple syrup (use rice malt, honey or stevia if you prefer)
- 1 tsp vanilla powder
- Good pinch himalayan salt
For the raw chocolate shell:
- 1/2 cup cacao butter (grated if in large pieces)
- 1/2 cup raw cacao powder
- 1/4 cup of maple syrup (or your own choice of sweetener as above)
How To Make This Recipe
- Combine all of the peanut butter dough ingredients a food processor (chickpeas) and process until well combined and forming a thick dough (you may need to scrape down the sides of the food processor)
- Transfer dough to a bowl, cover and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. This will allow the dough to firm up and become more manageable for shaping into eggs
- Take small spoonfuls of the dough and initially roll into a ball. Pinch the top of the ball and gently mould into teardrop or egg shapes. Place egg-shaped balls onto a tray lined with baking paper
- Prepare your chocolate: fill a large bowl halfway with hot water and place a smaller bowl inside. Add the cacao butter and stir for a few minutes until all of the cacao butter is melted
- Add the cacao powder and maple syrup and stir well to remove any lumps
- One by one, drop the dough balls into the liquid chocolate and very gently stir to ensure the entire surface has been covered with chocolate. Use a fork to scoop the dough out of the chocolate and let it drip for a few seconds to remove excess chocolate.
- Place each dough ball back on the baking paper and continue until all of the balls have been covered in chocolate
- If you have extra chocolate left over you can add this to a small plastic bag and cut a tiny hole in the corner to make a piping bag. Use this bag to make patterns on top of the easter eggs until all of the chocolate is used up
- Place easter eggs in the fridge to set
- Enjoy your healthy easter treats! Store any leftovers in the fridge to ensure the chocolate does not melt in warm weather
About The Author - Tamika Woods
