I made these homemade pretzel peanut butter cups today completely by mistake. No really, I did. I’ve never made peanut butter cups in my life before today. Here’s the story.

I went into the kitchen intending to make chocolate-dipped marshmallows for hot cocoa (here). I put the chocolate into the microwave to melt it and went to the pantry to grab the marshmallows. What?! No marshmallows? How can this be? You know you’ve been there.

Suddenly I realized I had a large amount of melted chocolate and nothing to do with it. I was in a hurry to figure something out before the chocolate firmed up – chocolate is temperamental that way. My first thought was to make a batch of Buckeye Balls. So, I dash back to the pantry and grab the peanut butter, put it in the bowl, and then grab the powdered sugar. Gasp. Not enough powdered sugar to make the peanut butter firm enough to roll into balls.

So, now I have melted chocolate and sweetened peanut butter and no plan. I glance over at the chocolate and it’s still smooth, but I’m getting more irritated by the second. Then, it dawned on me. I grabbed the muffin pan, put a little chocolate in the bottom of each cup, topped with a dollop of the sweetened peanut butter mixture…. wait, pretzels would be amazing… grab the pretzels, crush and toss. Top with more chocolate. Refrigerate until chocolate is set.

Homemade pretzel peanut butter cups. A happy accident. And quite possibly, a new holiday tradition in our house. The moral of the story is: don’t give up in the kitchen. Cooking is all about trial and error coupled with improvisation. While you’re making funny food memories, you may just stumble upon something brilliant.

*My apologies for not having a recipe to provide for this happy accident; in my frenzy, I was not taking measurements. But, I suspect I will make these again in the future, and next time, I will develop a recipe for you. 

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Maya