Peanut Butter Cup Fudge

I love making fudge with sweetened condensed milk, and have made several varieties over the past few years. One of the first flavours I tried was Reese's Fudge and I wanted to make it again, but I kept forgetting to pick up Reese's peanut butter cups. At some point I got the bright idea that I could make the peanut butter cups instead of buying them and that is exactly what I did. My sister-in-law has an awesome peanut butter cup recipe and I used it to make peanut butter patties for this recipe. I worked out the difference, and I saved over $3 in peanut butter cups by just making the patties at home. Win!

For the Peanut Butter Patties:
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 tbs + 2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbs margarine
1/3 cup icing sugar

Mix all ingredients together and roll into balls (makes approx. 25 balls). Chill them in the fridge for 3 hours. Remove from fridge and slightly flatten to form patties.

For the Fudge:
3 cups milk chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk (300 ml)
1 cup chopped peanuts
1 tsp vanilla
25 homemade peanut butter patties

Add chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk to saucepan over medium heat.

Heat until melted together. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pour about a 1/4 of the mixture into a prepared 8x8 baking dish. Ensure the bottom is completely covered.

Place peanut butter patties onto the already poured fudge. Then cover them with the rest of the chocolate mixture.

Top with chopped peanuts, pressing gently to adhere to chocolate. Chill in the refrigerator. I always chill my fudge overnight for best results.

Once chilled, cut fudge into pieces for eating and sharing. This one is pretty great for both!