I’ve made this recipe now since 2010 and every single year these are the bomb diggity. One comment we once got was “almost gave me an orgasm”. They are just that damn good.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup peanut butter + 2 large tablespoons
  • 1 cup confectioners sugar
  • 4 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 bag chocolate chips
  • Milk or Cream as needed

Note 1: Do not use Half and Half; the last time we used Half and Half, 2019, it caused the melted chocolate to “seize” up entirely and it took another bag of chips and milk to restore it; my suspicion is that Kroger brand Half and Half isn’t purely Dairy but I forgot to check the label / don’t trust it anyway.

Note 2: For the enormous quantity of Peanut Butter Balls I make annually, use:

  • 1 40 ounce jar Jif Peanut Butter
  • 1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk
  • 4 Cups Confections Sugar
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 2 to 3 bags chocolate chips

Note 3: When you run out of chocolate chips, a broken up Easter Bunny makes a great extender.

Steps

  1. Mix all the above ingredients in a standing mixer until smooth. Find a true peanut butter fanatic (I use my wife) and have them taste it for pleasurability. If the mixture is too dry and crumbly then add more sweetened condensed milk and continue mixing. This is a fun process so taste away.

  2. Roll into balls roughly 3/4″ to 1″ round (that’s 1.75 to 2.54 centimeters roughly for those non-U.S. readers).

  3. Place on a cookie sheet on top of waxed paper or tinfoil in the refrigerator for 1 hour minimum.

  4. Take a double boiler and fill the bottom with water until it is roughly 1″ below the top boiling pan — a double boiler is two boiling pans nested together where the bottom one is filled with water and when heated the steam warms the top pan. This avoids exposing fragile substances like chocolate to direct heat. Indirect heat is like a software abstraction layer — it saves you from yourself.

  5. Fill the top double boiler pan with 1 1/2 cups of semi sweet chocolate morsels — Nestles work great and cheap house brands generally do not and a generous splash of milk.

  6. Stir with a plastic spatula, preferably a silicone spatula if you have one, until the morsels melt. Stir some more until all lumps are out. Dip the peanut butter balls in chocolate until they’re happily covered (you really want them to be gleeful but happy is good enough) with a nice thick coating. Then add them back to the cookie sheet.

  7. When all are covered then place them back in the refrigerator over night.

IMPORTANT: The top boiling pan must be DRY as must the spatula as a bone as water radically screws up molten chocolate. In my trial and error prone fashion on my first batch I attempted to thin the chocolate with water instead of milk and, well, lets not discuss that any further.

See Also