Wednesday Advice Recipedown

(Or, the Wednesday Recipe Smackdown, but isn't "Recipedown" a funny word?)

No advice column today, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead? Something better. As the old saying goes, "You give a girl a hair product, her hair looks awesome for one day. You teach a girl how to make homemade Reese's chocolate peanut butter cups, her already-awesome hair will distract everyone from her huge, fat ass."

So exactly. I'm going to teach y'all how to make homemade chocolate peanut butter cups that taste just like the Reese's ones, only better, because they're a lot more difficult. Except they're easy!

(I lie! I lie! Why do I tell such lies?)

Some context: today is Chocolate Day at work. Which is pretty much just what it sounds like. It's our annual Day Of All Things Chocolate For Which To Stuff Our Faces With. Everybody makes or bakes or buys something chocolatey and we eat it all. All day.

Here's the spread this year:

I think I kind of want a salad.

The last couple Chocolate Days I was super-ambitious to out-chocolate people and made "Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Clones" from an old seekrit family recipe that I found online by Googling "fake peanut butter cups" and clicking on the first link.

This year, I casually mentioned to our Office Bubbe, the Organizer and Reigning Queen of Chocolate Day, that I didn't think I was up for making them and might just buy some candy.

I might as well have said that I was thinking of rounding up some puppies and drowning them in front of everybody while an American flag burned in the background. There was wailing. There was begging. There was much ego stroking.

These things are THAT GOOD.

So I made them. And took pictures. Ta. Da.

HOW TO MAKE FAKE REESE'S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS FOR FUN & PROFIT

First, get your ingredients together.

For 24 cups, you will need: cupcake/muffin cups, two bags of milk chocolate chips, one huge honkin' tub of reduced-fat creamy peanut butter, powdered sugar, salt and two bottles of wine. Also Pringles.

Next, cut the tops off the muffin cups so they're shallower. Eat Pringles.

This is mostly for cosmetic reasons. Just like clipping a dog's ears, only not as stupid.

Then melt the chocolate chips, one bag at a time, in the microwave. Drink wine.

2 minutes at 50% power should do it. Stir very gently and let the bowl sit for a minute or two. If additional meltage is needed, do 30 seconds at a time at 50% power. Be careful because burned chocolate smells so very, very bad and you will just have to throw the bowl out because you'll never get it clean. Bah.

Using a spoon, spread chocolate into the muffin cups, coating the bottom and sides with a wafer-thin layer. Use the back of the spoon to coax the chocolate up the sides.

Put the cups in a metal muffin baking pan and stick in fridge to harden. Ignore plaintive stares from dog.

Mix two cups peanut butter with one cup powdered sugar. Add half teaspoon salt.

This is hard work. Betty Crocker must have had fucking arms of steel.

Make sure to taste-test your work.

I don't really like a lot of my coworkers, but you may choose a more hygenic sampling method.

Melt the peanut butter in the microwave for one minute at full power.

Spoon into the cups. Leave a little room at the top for the last layer of chocolate, brainiac.

Put in fridge for one hour. Drink more wine. Watch Gilmore Girls.

Did you know if you hit pause on the TV at the right moment you can totally pretend to be hanging out with Lorelai and Rory? It's true.

To wreak full intestinal havoc on one's self, take a break from the Pringles and peanut butter and chocolate sampling for a burrito with hot salsa.

Remelt remaining chocolate for 30 seconds at 50% power and spoon a thin layer on top of hardened peanut butter. Stick back in fridge for final hardening process.

It's also way more fun if you forget about this step until 11:30 at night.

Take to work and have everybody make a fuss over you and your kickass candy-making skills.

And after they've all been eaten, post pictures of yourself licking the peanut butter on the Internet. Your work is done.