I first made these last year to assuage the peanut butter egg jealousy that is inevitable when your boyfriend's dad is a pastor. Every Easter the little old church ladies make dozens and dozens of peanut butter eggs, a lot of which end up going to The Boy's dad, and then to The Boy himself. They're mighty fine eggs, I'm not going to lie, but they're also mighty un-vegan. These are pretty easy to make and so seriously delicious that you'll want to wave them in the old ladies' faces and go "nyah nyah nyahnyah nyah." Until they cry. Because nothing warms my heart like making old ladies cry.

These are Omnivore Approved - my vegan-fearing family ate them with no prodding on my part, which means that normal people will stop you on the street and ask for them.

Peanut Butter Eggs

1 c. margarine
8 oz vegan cream cheese
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 lbs powdered sugar
2 1/4 c smooth peanut butter

24 oz (2 bags) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 Tbsp. vegetable shortening

Cream margarine and cream cheese together. Add salt, vanilla, powdered sugar, and peanut butter and mix thoroughly. Roll into roughly 1 1/2 inch eggs. Stick your eggs on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper and freeze for about 2 hours.

Melt the chocolate however you want (I do it in the microwave) and stir in the shortening. This is important. I left it out when I first started dipping mine and it was 100 times more gloppy and used up about twice as much chocolate as it should have. The finished eggs aren't as pretty, either. The shortening thins out the chocolate enough that dipping them is fairly easy, and it makes for a nice, smooth coating. Trust me on this one.

Dip your little peanut butter nuggets, put them back on the cookie sheets, and stick them in the freezer to harden up. It doesn't take long - maybe half an hour. I like to wrap each one in wax paper, which keeps them from getting broken and also makes for easy gift-giving. I keep mine in the freezer until I need them, because they're excellent cold.

Makes about 10 dozen eggs.

I don't know the nutritional information for sure, but I believe it's around 100 calories per egg. You know, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Posted by Amanda on April 15, 2006 at 10:50 PM | Permalink