Review by Cat Eldridge: Ok I’ll admit that I’ve a serious jones for the combination of dark chocolate and peanut butter. Now not all such combinations work that are designed around these two flavors as they usually tend to be too sweet. Say peanut butter fudge ice cream as it tends to be too sweet. So it’s a bit surprising that two miniature candies, the dark chocolate version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups are a serious addition to my munches list.
Now I was raised as most American kids were on the milk chocolate version of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups which frankly I’ll admit will still do in a pinch. After all they are intensely redolent of peanut butter, albeit not your fancy gourmet peanut butter, but the commercial grade stuff found in a jar of Jiffy peanut butter. Overly sweet and somewhat bland as well.
The dark chocolate & peanut butter Reese’s Miniature Cups are one of those treats I try not indulge in too often as I can gobble them down way too fast. I eat them four at a time, roughly the same amount of material as the much more common milk chocolate Reese’s Cup I used to crave. When I upgraded to eating only dark chocolate, I found these one day. It was lust at first bite as they are delightful as the dark chocolate is far better than I expected. Not dark, dark I admit, but not bad at all. Though I think the new SHARE! logo is assuming you’ll not be too greedy and keep them all to yourself as I do.
(Yes, I do share chocolate as you know, but I specifically buy that chocolate for that purpose.)
I didn’t discover Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups until many years after I first started snacking on the former. I was in Trader Joe’s one early Autumn afternoon when I noticed these small bags of dark chocolate peanut butter cups for just a dollar, a price that’s never changed.
They are quite different than different the Reese’s Miniature Cups with the dark chocolate being much more intense than the Reese’s cups are and the peanut butter much more salty as well. Not to mention the small amount of cups in a package makes it easy to avoid over-indulging. Well sort of. If you need more, you can buy a much larger container of these, a full pound, something I’ve avoided doing.
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We live next door to the Reese Factory.
When the standard-issue peanut butter cups are fresh off the line, they are amazing.
Sadly, unless you or a relative work at the factory, you won’t often get fresh off the line peanut butter cups.
We did — once — when after a massive snowstorm, a security guard bribed our kids to stay off the snow mountains in the Reese parking lot with a bag of peanut butter cups fresh off the line.
The snow storm was in February and the cups were packaged in Easter wrappings.
I still remember the taste!
I admit, even as a child I was never overly fond of Reese’s cups. They were okay but. . . As a result, I’ve never tried the Reese’s cups with dark chocolate.
And I’ve never tried the Trader Joe’s either, just because I never noticed them on the shelf. I was too busy looking for their dark chocolate almonds which are so horrifically addictive that I had to authorize my husband to police my consumption, lest I finish the box in one sitting.
I took the dark-chocolate-only vow, early in life. I read somewhere that “the fact that red wine and dark chocolate are good for you is proof there is a god”. That’s my mantra, even my prayer.
So I will look for their dark chocolate/peanut butter cups. You sound like a kindred soul. Many thanks for the tip.
That sounds lovely for you dark chocolate fans, and peanut butter fans.
And I encourage you to keep it for your own enjoyment, which I will never call selfish. I count it as a public service to those of us who cannot eat peanut butter.
Every year on the family vacation to Maine, we visit the Goldenrod candy shop at York Beach. They’re mostly known for their saltwater taffy, but they also make a variety of other confections, including dark chocolate peanut butter cups which are delicious.
Even generic bulk-bin chocolate is better when fresh, as I found out more than 50 years ago while working at a variety store. I got a bag of the Reese’s dark miniature cups just a couple of days ago and agree with Cat; they’re very good. Trying to limit myself to 3 at a time.