The first butter cup was created in 1928, by a man H. B. Reese. He was a shipping foreman and a dairy farmer who worked for Milton S. Hershey.
Then he left dairy farming and in a basement within his home in Hershey Pennsylvania, he founded the Harry Burnett Reese Candy Co. After his death in 1956, his company was left to his 6 sons, who merged the company with the Hershey Chocolate Corp in 1963.
It was a stock-for-stock merge, tax-free. In 1963, the brothers got 666,316 common stocks with almost $24 million dollars value.
Nowadays, there are 20 varieties of Reese’s peanut butter cups. Although Mr. Reese has made tasty peanut butter cups and his sons improved the business, the used ingredients became questionable. These peanut cups are based on the disputed ingredient Polyglycerol polyricinoleate or PGPR, a substitute for cocoa butter.
The FDA asserts that a restricted intake of 7.5mg of PGPR per kilogram of body weight is safe for consumption. In the case of higher intakes, you will be prone to reversible liver enlargement.
Let’s analyze the component ingredients in this world’s most popular candy.
Ingredients of this peanut butter cup:
- Milk chocolate (chocolate, milk, cocoa butter, sugar, milk fat, no fat milk, soy lecithin, lactose, PGPR), sugar, peanuts, salt, dextrose, citric acid, and TBHQ.
and the following three are in fact the reasons to avoid this product:
- Polyglycerol pily ricinoleate (PGPR). This disputed ingredient has replaced cocoa butter in order to reduce manufacturing costs. It is made from castor beans, a chemical that lowers the viscosity of chocolate and can cause an allergic reaction and gastrointestinal discomfort in children.
- Soy Lecithin. Almost 93% of soy is a GMO food. This food additive can lead to breast cancer, affect reproduction and fertility and lead to cerebral and behavioral abnormalities.
- Tertiary Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ). This compound comes from petroleum and it relates to butane. Its toxic properties can lead to vomiting, nausea, delirium, ringing in the ear, and collapse. According to a study conducted on lab rats, it can cause stomach cancer, damage the human umbilical and lung cells, and fragment DNA. It can intensify the symptoms of ADHD and cause restlessness and anxiety in children.
Here is the recipe. Create your homemade butter cups.
You need the following ingredients:
- muffin tin liners -12
- organic dark chocolate – 12 oz.
- raw honey – 1/4
- cup organic peanut butter – 1
- organic salt – 1/4 tsp
How to prepare:
1. Trim the muffin linens so that they a shallower.
2. Put the chocolate in a small pan and place it on the stovetop on low heat. Stir the chocolate gently and let it stay for a minute. Make sure you do not overcook the chocolate because it can be thick and unusable.
3. With a teaspoon, pour some portion of the chocolate into the muffin linen. With the back of the spoon, draw the chocolate up the edges of the cup. When the inside part of the muffin linen is coated with chocolate, put the whole muffin in a muffin tin. Then put them in the fridge so that the chocolate hardens.
4. In a medium bowl mix raw honey, organic peanut butter, and organic salt.
5. When the chocolate is hardened, pour the peanut butter into a small pan on low heat. When softened, you can easily apply the peanut butter to the cups.
6. Put a small amount of peanut butter into each of the chocolate cups. On the top, you have to apply an additional layer of chocolate, which is later added. Place the cups in the fridge for about 10 minutes and then spread the peanut butter with the back of a small spoon. Put the cups in the fridge for an hour so that the peanut butter hardens.
7. When hardened, re-warm the rest of the chocolate on low heat. With a teaspoon spread a layer of chocolate on the top of each cup. Place the cups in the fridge for a last chill.
Via Epoppa