Crockpot Chocolate Peanut Clusters

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My husband stumbled across a local mom and pop supermarket in Moncure called Ray’s. They have a mix of old school candy and treats, fresh meat, hot sauces galore, food staples, ammo, and more. They periodically get in baggies of chocolate covered raisins (my original favorite) and double dipped chocolate covered peanuts. The double dipped chocolate covered peanuts are amazing! However, I do not have the patience to individually double dip peanuts. I found this recipe for crockpot chocolate peanut clusters in a quest to find something close when they ran out of peanuts.

The fact that you can make these wondrous beauties in the crockpot while you’re working on something else is the icing on the cake. Or in my case I can walk away from them to change a dirty diaper, figure out what the chaos is in the living room, or move the Gabby’s Dollhouse to the dining room table because we currently can’t play in our room without worrying about the chocolate seizing in the double boiler.

This recipe comes from Carrie on Desserts on a Dime. I’ve not checked out her website thoroughly to see what other treasures she has on there. It is on my I need to dig deeper list. I found her recipe on Pinterest and am glad I did.

Here’s what you will need:

• lightly salted peanuts
• semisweet chocolate chips
• milk chocolate chips
• peanut butter chips
• white almond bark or candy coating
• LARGE crockpot

Yeah that last ingredient is important..

I discovered after everything but the peanuts was in my crockpot, that I couldn’t use my smaller crockpots but needed my full size crockpot. The good news was I hadn’t turned it on yet. So save yourself a step and just pull out that large crockpot because there’s a bunch more peanuts in two jars of 16 ounce peanuts than you think.

Add to your large crockpot: 12 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips, 12 ounces milk chocolate chips, 12 ounces peanut butter chips, and 2 containers of 16 ounce lightly salted peanuts. Make sure when you dump the peanuts in that you remove any parts of the shell you see in the jars that got left in there. No one wants to eat chocolate covered shell. Now that is what the recipe calls for, however as with everything bags of chocolate chips and such have shrunk. They’re more like 11oz or 10 oz for the peanut butter chips. I didn’t take the time to add a smidge from another bag, but used one bag of each instead. It turned out just fine minus the extra ounce or so. Then break apart one 24 ounce package of white almond bark into pieces and place them on top.

Put on the lid, turn it on low, and walk away

This is the glorious part… you can walk away. Now make sure you come back and stir it every 15-20 minutes. We don’t want baked chocolate but you don’t have to stand over it and stir constantly like you do a double boiler. So go fast forward the recorded Bluey episodes on Fubo that don’t fast forward well and you end up going back and forth trying to find the beginning. Or feed the hangry old man 3 year old who comes howling in the kitchen cause he said he didn’t need snack but now he’s HUNGRY Mama. The chocolate can survive without you being right there.

And that is why this has become a new staple recipe, because it can survive life in my house when the plumbing under the sink decides to fail and you have to take the phone call to go fix it (big shout out to Stiles for talking me through a plumbing repair). I love a good flexible recipe that won’t become a disaster because I have to walk away. And yes all the things mentioned happened during the hour and a half ish it took to make my chocolate peanut clusters.

An hour ish later…

Stir off and on for a hour and some change as needed until the only lumps you are seeing are peanuts. I stir longer than I needed because I thought I had unmelted chocolate in places that turned out to be peanuts. You will need about 4-5 cookie sheets depending on the size of you sheets. Cover them with wax paper or parchment paper. You can prep these whenever you want so that you’re ready to go when the melting is done.

Dot dot not a lot

That’s what I used to tell my Kindergarteners when using a glue bottle and the concept works here too. Smaller clusters go farther and are easier to eat. Now my clusters got bigger as I went and the chaos that needed attending in the living room got louder. So start small because we all know those clusters will get larger as you go and get tired of dropping them on the pan.

I used a table spoon and a small spatula to drop smallish portions on the paper. If you have a peanut that strays as you drop you can either push it back into the pile or leave it be. I let my errant peanuts stay where they fell. They became taste testers as I took them off the pans later and broke off the pieces that strayed away but were still attached by a dollop of chocolate.

Put them in the fridge for about an hour

Or two or three depending on how life is going in your house. Just don’t twist your ankle going down the steps when the extremely loud coyotes in the woods decide to start howling as you walk into the garage. I saved the trays of peanut clusters but my ankle was grouchy with me afterwards. My trays sat in the fridge a couple hours until kiddos were fed and the kitchen had been cleaned up so I had room to bring 5 trays back out of the garage fridge. Honestly they would probably be fine overnight if needed. Put them in a container or large ziplock bag and you’re done! You just made candy in a couple hours without making a huge disaster or burning chocolate on the stove because someone took out their chin on the train table again.

Feeling adventurous?

This recipe lends itself to variations. Swap out the type of chocolate you are using. You can use dark chocolate, more white chocolate, butterscotch chips, mint chocolate chips, or whatever else you can find to use. Trade out the nuts and use pecans or almonds. Throw in some cherries and make chocolate covered cherries. The possibilities are endless. Let me know if you mix it up and find a really yummy other combination.