Homemade vegan snickers peanut butter cups made with homemade peanut nougat, peanuts, dates and chocolate  – a simple gluten-free treat that you will love. Perfect for the holidays! Peanut-free option included.

Looking for a sweet vegan treat that is great for gifting during the holidays or for putting on your Halloween treats table? Vegan Snickers Cups is where it’s at! I don’t think I need to explain the concept of Snickers at great length. Let’s just say that if you love chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter then these Vegan Snickers Peanut Butter Cups are the way to go!

Homemade snickers cups are made with an easy peanut nougat, peanuts, dates which act as caramel layer, and chocolate  – a vegan, gluten-free, and grain-free homemade treat that you will love.

Traditional nougat for chocolate bars like mars or snickers bars is made with egg whites, sugar and vanilla. To make these Snickers Cups extra flavorful, I opted to make vegan peanut butter nougat using peanut butter as a base and adding maple syrup for sweetness and oat flour as a thickener. It works like a charm and only takes minutes.

Instead of caramel, we add halved, pitted dates, nature’s caramel!

Obviously, these are an amazing food gift but are also ideal for anyone who like Snickers and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups but find them a tad too sweet these days.

More vegan treats and candy:

Ingredients:

• vegan chocolate chips –  semi sweet  chocolate, a mix of dark and seminsweet  or all dark, depending on your taste
• refined coconut oil – I use refined to not have any coconut flavor in these vegan peanut butter cups
• smooth peanut butter – all natural
• maple syrup is used to sweeten the peanut butter nougat
•  oat flour is added to the nut butter and oat flour to thicken the nougat
• Medjool dates are our vegan stand-in for caramel sauce. Medjool are best here as they are nice and soft
• I used roasted unsalted peanuts but you can toast your nuts at home if you only have unroasted peanuts

Tips & Substitutions:

• When melting your chocolate, try and keep the chocolate under 88 degrees as it melts it will hold its original crystal structure. The result: your snickers cups will be perfectly shiny and snap once bit into them.
• Make sure no water gets into your chocolate mix or it will seize.
• Use all-natural smooth peanut butter for best results
• peanut-free: If you want to make this without peanuts, you can also smooth almond butter and use roasted cashews instead of peanuts. Hazelnut butter and hazelnuts would be another great substitution
• the peanuts can be roasted or raw. If using raw, toast them in a pan until fragrant to make them more flavorful.
• If you want, sprinkle them with some seas salt
• Use store-bought oat flour or grind some rolled oats in a spice grinder until you have a fine meal

Make the peanut butter nougat. Warm the peanut butter in the microwave, if it’s too stiff.  then mix in the maple syrup. Add in the oat flour until the mixture is slightly stiff then set aside.

Melt the chocolate. Add the chocolate and coconut oil to a double boiler and heat over medium heat. Start whisking when the chocolate is starting to melt and whisk until the chocolate is melted evenly. Take off heat. You can also melt the chocolate in the microwave. Melt in 30-second intervals and whisk. Once half of the chocolate has started melting and just whisk so that it’s melted evenly.

Prep a muffin tin by adding muffin liners.

Add about 2 teaspoons of melted chocolate to the liner and move the liner to spread around at the bottom so that the chocolate goes up at least half an inch on the edges. You can use up to a tablespoon of chocolate or melted chocolate if the chocolate isn’t spreading enough.

Then take about 2-3 teaspoons of the peanut butter nougat mixture then make it into a ball then flatten it so that it’s almost the size of the muffin hole and place it on the melted chocolate.

Slice the date in half and remove the pit. Then spread out the half date into a somewhat circle so that it will fit over the peanut butter mixture and then place it on the peanut butter mixture in the muffin pan.

Spread some peanuts on top.

Then add a tablespoon of the melted chocolate all over and spread it so that it covers all of the peanuts and also drips on the side.

Repeat to finish all the peanut nougat and chocolate. Place the muffin pan in the fridge so that the chocolate can harden.

Remove from the muffin liners after an hour and serve.

If you want to make this without peanuts, you can also smooth almond butter. Use roasted cashews instead of peanuts.