Being British, Reese’s chocolate is not very common over here, so I have to admit I have never had a peanut butter cup before. I get the impression online that in America at least, Reese’s peanut butter cups are very much a staple within the chocolate world, so I was very surprised to find a vegan version of the peanut butter cups in my local supermarket. I can’t find the regular version anywhere except at American import shops (which I believe are largely money laundering fronts here in the UK) yet somehow managed to find the vegan version without even looking.
Having not had a peanut butter cup before, I don’t really have much reference to compare the vegan version to. But I have had a lot of peanut butter in my life, and a lot of chocolate, so I have something to work with.
Annoyingly, this was kind of gross. There was a very strong peanut butter taste, yet it tasted very artificial. It reminded me of the nut free powdered peanut butter you can buy, for those who want the protein benefits of the nuts but are allergic to the actual nuts, and that is very much what this cup tasted like. It also had that very powdery texture to it, where it felt like the actual paste hadn’t been mixed enough so it still had quite a grainy texture to it, which was very disappointing for me as I hate grainy textures. The chocolate part was fine, in that is tasted like a standard chocolate. It had a nice crunch to it when you bite into the cup, but the paste really took away from any creaminess that the chocolate may have had. It also had that very artificial flavour to it, where it didn’t really taste like anything until a few moments later when you would get a very subtle peanut butter flavour, but again this was a very artificial flavour rather than a legitimate peanut butter.
Sadly, these are also very expensive. I found them on sale at my local shop for £3, which seemed a lot at the time but for the sake of trying something new I bought them anyway. The cups are quite small – possibly only a couple of bites big – and were very much a disappointment given how expensive they were. Especially when I know that almost every other chocolate bar out there at the moment is nicer, cheaper and bigger than this. For any of my American readers, are Reese’s peanut butter cups usually better than this? Are they better in America? I’d love to have some sort of reference to compare these against, but obviously I can’t try the non-vegan option.
Taylor Talks Vegan 