Peanut butter and chocolate might be America's favorite flavor pairing, and it is almost always made with the cheapest version of both. We took the opposite approach, and gave it wings.
What makes a great peanut butter chocolate? The filling. The famous cup in the orange wrapper uses a dry, sweetened peanut paste that is engineered to sit on shelves. The older, better answer is praliné: nuts caramelized in sugar, then ground until the whole thing turns smooth and glossy. Caramelizing the peanuts first changes everything. You get roasted depth and a toasty sweetness that plain peanut butter never reaches.
What is a Peanut Butterfly?
Our twist on the classic. We fill milk and bittersweet chocolate butterflies with our smooth, creamy homemade peanut praliné, a combination of caramelized peanuts and chocolate, made here in the kitchen. The butterfly shape started as a bit of whimsy years ago and stayed because people would not let us retire it. Our Peanut Butterflies box includes both the milk and bittersweet versions, and the two are different enough that households develop loyalties.
Milk or bittersweet?
The milk chocolate version is the nostalgic one, rounder and creamier, closest in spirit to the candy you grew up with (just made from scratch). The bittersweet version is the one for people who think they are too serious for peanut butter chocolate. The deeper cocoa pushes against the sweet praliné and the result is closer to a dessert than a candy. I go back and forth, which is the honest answer and also a convenient one.
If you cannot choose either, the Classic Collection includes both butterflies alongside our Fleur de Sel Caramels and citrus hearts, which is how a lot of people meet them for the first time.
Taste one next to the cup in the orange wrapper sometime. I have nothing bad to say about nostalgia, but the praliné makes its own case in about four seconds, and it does not need my help.
Enjoy,
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck Siegel
Founder, Charles Chocolates
Chuck has been making chocolate in San Francisco since 1987. Self-taught, he founded his first chocolate company, Attivo Confections, sold it in 1995, and started Charles Chocolates in 2004 on one uncommon idea: chocolate should be treated like fresh food.
Everything is made in small batches with all-natural ingredients (real cream, real butter, real fruit) and no shortcuts. His work has earned a Good Food Award, Sunset Magazine's Best of the West, and recognition from San Francisco Magazine, and has been covered by KQED and the San Francisco food press.
