Super Easy, Super Amazing Vegan Sunbutter and Coconut Cups
January 30, 2012 2 Comments
Once you’ve gone “all the way” with your sunbutter like my hot night of passion, or even just had a quickie by picking up a jar at the market, you’re ready to take your relationship to the next level and dress your little sunbutter up in some chocolate! This goes for coconut too, though, it holds a completely different, more platonic, place in my heart.
I made both of these bad boys over the holiday break and gifted (I know that Alex is going to cringe when he reads me using “gift” as a verb, but I stand by this use as it’s now perfectly acceptable—the dictionary confirms this, thank you very much) my co-workers with a variety of chocolate goodness that you can read more about here. These little buggers were a serious hit with my co-workers so it’s safe to say that they’re as good (if not better) than your standard peanut butter ones. And, really, the options of what kind of nut or seed butter you want to use are limitless so play around with a particular filling that knocks your socks off.
General recipe ingredients and guidelines for making your way to any sunbutter or coconut lover’s heart:
Ingredients
Chocolate
- 4 cups chocolate chips
- 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
Sunbutter Filling
- 1 cup creamy sunbutter
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup, agave syrup, or other liquid sweetener of your choice.
- Mini muffin tin (I found mine at Sur La Table)
- Mini paper cupcake/muffin cups (Found these at Sur La Table as well)
Directions
Mix Filling: For both, stir together all filling ingredients in separate small bowls and set aside.
Melt Chocolate and Assemble: Melt the chocolate chips and vegetable shortening in a small heavy bottom pan over the stove until completely smooth. With a mini spoon, other small utensil, or paintbrush paint the inside of the paper muffin cups with the melted chocolate. Make sure to coat every nook and cranny so that there are no holes. Place the cup in the muffin tin so that it retains it’s shape. Once you’ve coated as many cups that the mold holds with chocolate, place the pan in the freezer for 3-5 minutes until the chocolate has completely hardened. Remove from the freezer and spoon the sunbutter or coconut filling into each of the cups. Then cover each cup with your melted chocolate. Refrigerate until hardened. They can be stored this way for several weeks (and probably months, but they’re not likely to last long enough to test that theory). Also, I had to do many batches since my tin only held 12 cups at at time and I didn’t need to remelt my chocolate through all of it, but if your chocolate does harden before you’re finished simply go ahead and remelt it.
Yield: Varies depending on the size of your muffin cups.
Coconut filling recipe inspiration credit: Elana’s Pantry
Fruit of Adventure 
I’m making these tomorrow. As a note, depending upon what type of chocolate one uses, tempering it can be important. Tempering used to be a scary word. The simple way to tell it is the correct temperature is to melt it in a double boiler OR use a small bowl that fits over the top of a pot of water, not letting the water hit the pan, an inch or so clearance is enough. Then you swipe a dab of the melting right under your bottom lip and it should be skin temperature or just slightly warmer, this should allow the chocolate not to burn and be easy to work with and not waxy. I’ve never tried mixing in shortening, however the better chocolates have a good mix of cocoa liquor and a certain percentage of butterfat. If one uses those little chocolate disks found just anywhere, often they are sugar wafers made to melt nicely but not always chocolate, but chocolate flavored. I think I spelled cocoa liquor improperly. The type of chocolates that I was fortunate to have to work with, also hardened quite quickly, which was annoying if i was shaping it, and didn’t perform well in the fridge or freezer as water in it is the enemy and made it gum and stick, rather ruining it.
I’m going to use a nut free dairy free chip to do this so I will add the shortening agent.
Oh, I’m so excited that you’re going to give this one a try tonight, Elisa! You’re right about tempering chocolate. Adding the bit of fat to it has always helped to prevent the chocolate from seizing into a ball of mess for me. I’ve not had much luck melting it without adding shortening or Earth Balance. Also, I’ve had varying degrees of success with different types of chocolates and found that, surprisingly, the Whole Foods 365 brand of semi-sweet chocolate chips work the best. I guess they’ve all worked fine, but the 365 brand has provided me with the prettiest chocolate color when I make chocolates. Good luck!!!