Anyone from Ohio (and probably the Midwest), knows the meaning of a buckeye. Creamy peanut butter rolled into a ball and dipped into melted chocolate. The perfect marriage of flavor combo. Oh, and they’re also known as a form of chestnuts that you can eat after roasting, but I’d rather stick with the chocolate kind.
Instead of posting the buckeye recipe that everyone has made a million times before, I decided to mix things up! Instead of just peanut butter, you can use a nut butter of your choice! I chose to use a mix of peanut, almond, and pistachio butter. But I was also tempted to use cashew or hazelnut butter.
I’m giving you the recipe to make your own nut butter. It’s fool-proof and only takes about 15 minutes to make. The hardest part is watching the nuts in the oven because you don’t want them to burn. You can use a store-bought nut butter, but you’ll have to add more powdered sugar to get the correct consistency.
The mixture inside is just a nut butter of your choice, a bit of honey, and vanilla. If you’re using store-bought nut butter, you might need to add just a tablespoon of powdered sugar too. Most recipes called for more powdered sugar than peanut butter, yikes too sweet for me. These aren’t the overly sweet buckeyes people typically make, so you can feel better about eating these! Because who can eat just one buckeye!?
Along with switching up the nut butters, I dipped the buckeyes in dark, milk, and white chocolate. There’s endless flavor combinations for these buckeyes! I bet using hazelnut butter dipped in milk chocolate would be amazing! I think my favorite was pistachio with dark chocolate. Perfection!
Healthy Ohio Buckeyes
https://northcoasteats.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/buckeyes-0076.jpg
| Yield: makes 40 mini buckeyes |
A variety of homemade fresh nut butters dipped in melted chocolate.
You'll Need...
- 1 1/2 cups nuts of your choice (ideas include peanuts, almond, pistachios, hazelnuts, cashews)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 -2 tablespoon powdered sugar (optional)
- 12 ounces chocolate, melted (dark. milk, or white chocolate)
Directions
- Make nut butter: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place nuts on a baking sheet and roast about 8 - 10 minutes until barely browned. Let cool.
- Add nuts (1 variety at a time, if you used multiple kinds of nuts), to a food processor and pulse until butter forms. This might take up to 10 minutes, scrape in-between pulses.
- Make buckeyes: Separate types of nut butters in individual bowls. Divide honey and vanilla evenly among different bowls. Mix well for about 1 minute. If mixture seems too sticky or soft add some powdered sugar.
- Roll mixture into 1/2 tablespoon balls, set on parchment paper lined cookie sheets.
- Freeze 45 minutes, until solid and hard.
- Place melted chocolate in a shallow bowl. Drop nut butter ball in chocolate, roll around covering 3/4 of the ball with chocolate. To remove from bowl, scoop out with a fork or skewer. Place on waxed paper to harden. Repeat with all buckeyes.
- Freeze for 15 minutes to harden everything. Best stored in the refrigerator.
Additional Notes
images & text © North Coast Eats
I will have to try this because I make the one with more powered sugar.
Thank you Christina. You have the best recipes
Thank YOU for commenting! You’ll enjoy them, they’re a little less sweet but still delicious.