This Mama Bird's Perspecitve and Path to her Chicks Flying the Coop...Someday : Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs With Pretzels... Tastes just like a Take 5!

I love anything Chocolate & Peanut Butter…. In the candy isle I love the Take 5 candy that has the chocolate, peanut butter and pretzels… Anyways I digress… I decided to go really light on the candy this year for Easter. With 5 kids and to fill all those eggs with candy, I usually will buy a few bags of candy while fighting through the guilt of feeding my family all of that sugar. Secretly we usually only allow them to eat a little bit of candy and then end up throwing away a ton of candy. So this year I bought one small 8 oz. bag of gummy bears and coconut eggs because they are a favorite of one of the kids. I had 120 eggs to fill though, so I got $10 worth of quarters, which only filled 40 eggs! I then put one to two gummy bears in the other eggs, but still had about 20 eggs to fill…. So I used my craft punch and paint chip samples to cut out some egg shapes and wrote some prizes on the back of them that the kids would value, like excuse from chores, special trip with only mom or dad, and time increments that they could cash in when they wanted to stay up a little late, or spend more time on the video games… Anyway, I think the kids liked it. I also had two golden eggs that had a few more prizes in it and found good hiding spots for them. It was fun for my oldest son who had a good time looking for them, and he even helped his little sister find one too! Gotta love that!

Anyway back to the peanut butter eggs. I know there are tons of recipes out there for chocolate peanut butter eggs, but this one is pretty awesome. The peanut butter and pretzel filling is really good, and I didn’t use sugar! (Honey was used as a substitute) , whole wheat, and instead of butter or oil, I used coconut oil. Anyway let me know if you try it what you think.

Needed: flour, peanut butter, honey, coconut oil, pretzels, chocolate chips, shortening (optional), and silicone egg molds.

Ingredients for filling:

1/4 cup plus 2 T of whole wheat pastry flour,
1/4 cup plus 1 T of Peanut Butter
3 T of Honey
1 1/2 t of melted coconut oil
1/4 cup pretzels crushed (I kept a couple of full pretzels to roll up in the filling)

Coating:

1 cup chocolate chips
optional – 1 T plus 1 t of shortening, if you want your chocolate shell to be softer. If you prefer a hard shell omit the shortening.

Mix together first four of the filling ingredients. Add more flour if you want a stiffer filling.

This seemed like a good consistency
Place mix in the freezer
Melt coating. I used my microwave and started with 30 seconds and then 20 second increments after. Stir after each time, as sometimes it can look like it is not melted when really it is.

Remember no shortening if you want a hard shell.
Pull filling out of freezer for 5 to 10 minutes. Take about 1 T of the filling and roll it up into a ball/egg shape. Push your thumb into the middle to make a nest.
Place some crushed pretzel pieces (or whole) inside. Take about 1 teaspoon of filling and cover the pretzels, reshape into egg shape. I tested the size of the piece by making sure it would fit in the egg mold without going over the top of the mold.

Fill with crushed or whole pretzel
There is a surprise inside

6. Fill egg up the egg mold with melted chocolate 1/3 of the way.
Place your hand shaped molded filling into the egg mold, pressing it into the chocolate. (Make sure you don’t push it too hard or squish it down or you will be able to see the peanut butter through the chocolate (although it does create a cool look))
Pour melted chocolate over the top until it fills to the top of the egg.

Clean edges create clean eggs
After all eggs are filled up, I placed in the freezer for about 15 minutes.