Making chocolate and nut butter cups is a fun cooking activity that school-aged children and adolescents will love. With just a few supplies, you and your child or teen can work together to grow more comfortable in the kitchen while spending quality time together. The end product will be sure to make your child or teen feel proud of themselves, allowing them to feel a sense of mastery and control over this cooking task. This can, believe it or not, boost your child or teens sense of independence and confidence.
The best part of this activity? You get a
delicious, chocolatey treat at the end! Enjoy!
Supplies:
Nut Butter
Chocolate for Melting
Sea Salt (optional)
Spoons
Spatula
Glass Bowl
Cupcake Liners or Small Paper Cups
Cupcake Pan (optional)
Activity Steps:
Step 1: Clean Activity Space and Gather Materials
For this activity, you will want to make sure you have a clean tablespace because we are making delicious treats. Once you have chosen when to make your chocolate nut butter cups, you can gather the supplies that are listed above.
For this activity, there are some optional steps/materials. For instance, you do not need to have sea salt to make these treats. You also do not need a cupcake pan if you are making your nut butter cups in small paper cups instead of cupcake liners. You get to pick what will work best for you based on what is available in your kitchen.
Step 2: Melt Chocolate
Now it is time to start cooking! First, you will pour your chocolate into your glass bowl. You may notice in the picture, we used chocolate chips. A broken up chocolate bar or melting candies will work great as well! You can also use milk chocolate, dark chocolate, or even white chocolate. The choice is yours!
Next, you will place this bowl into the microwave and heat the chocolate for 20-second intervals. Between each interval, stir your chocolate using your spatula. You will repeat this process until your chocolate is smooth and melted fully.
Carefully, remove the glass bowl from the microwave. This bowl may be hot, so you may want help from an adult to finish this step.
Step 3: Add Cupcake Liners to Pan (or set out paper cups)
Next to your melted chocolate, place your cupcake pan and cupcake liners OR your paper cups. If you are using a cupcake pan, place one cupcake liner into each spot on the pan.
Step 4: Create Bottom Layer of Chocolate
Using a spoon, you will scoop up some melted chocolate and pour a small layer into the bottom of each cupcake liner or paper cup. Each cupcake linker or paper cup will become a nut butter cup!
This bottom layer of chocolate should be thick enough to fully cover the bottom of, but not fill the cup all the way up so there is space for nut butter and more chocolate.
Once you add the first layer to each cup, gently tap each paper cup or the cupcake pan to smooth out the layer so it is flat.
Step 5: Add Nut Butter
Next, using a clean spoon, you will add your nut butter to each cup with the bottom layer of chocolate. You can add as much or as little nut butter as you want to each cup, but remember that you still want space to add one more chocolate layer on the top.
You also get to choose what kind of nut butter you use in this step. Peanut butter, almond butter, even sunflower seed butter are all tasty choices! Make sure to pick your nut butter based on any allergies you or your friends and family may have. You can even choose whether you want your nut butter to be crunchy or smooth! In the example you see in the images, crunchy almond butter was used and it added a great texture to the final cups.
Once you add your nut butter to each cup, you can tap again to help the nut butter fall into a smooth, flat layer.
Step 6: Add Top Layer of Chocolate
Next, you will repeat a very similar process to step 4, except this time you are creating the top layer of chocolate on top of the nut butter layer you just made.
For this top layer of chocolate, you want to fully and completely cover the nut butter so it is like a hidden surprise inside the two layers of nut butter. Yum!
Again, you will tap, tap, tap to smooth out your top layer of chocolate. Don’t these already look so yummy?
Step 7: Sprinkle Salt (optional)
This step is optional. If you like to salty and sweet snacks, we recommend sprinkling a tiny bit of sea salt on top of each chocolate nut butter cup.
This will boost the flavor of your cups, but again, this is totally optional. If you choose to add sea salt, make sure not to add too much. Just a small sprinkle.
Step 8: Place in Fridge/Freezer to Cool
Now you will place your chocolate nut butter cups in the fridge or freezer to cool and to harden the chocolate. If you used a cupcake pan, you will place the whole pan in the fridge or freezer to cool. If you used paper cups, you will place each individual cup in the fridge or freezer.
If you want to enjoy your treats sooner rather than later, we recommend allowing the chocolate nut butter cups to cool in the freezer so this process is a bit faster. Based on the size of the cups you made, it will take about 10-20 minutes for the chocolate to harden in the freezer and about 20-40 minutes for the chocolate to harden in the fridge.
Step 9: Remove from Fridge/Freezer
You will not it is time to remove your cups from cooling when the chocolate is no longer glossy. You can also test the chocolate by gently poking a cup with a toothpick to see if the chocolate is hardened. Once the chocolate is hardened, you can remove your cups from the fridge or freezer.
Step 10: Remove Nut Butter Cups from Cupcake Pan
If you used a cupcake pan, you can remove each cup from the pan. Leave the cups in the cupcake liners until you are ready to enjoy. If you used small paper cups, you can leave the chocolate nut butter cups in the paper cup until you are ready to enjoy them.
Step 11: Enjoy!
Now for the best part… enjoy! Unwrap a chocolate nut butter cup and enjoy as the chocolate melts in your mouth and you taste the yummy nut butter! These are great to share with friends and family. You can store any extra chocolate nut butter cups in the fridge.