• 1 1/3 cups creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup crispy rice cereal
• 8-10 ounce semi sweet or milk chocolate or chocolate chips

1) Using a hand mixer, cream together butter and peanut butter with confectioner’s sugar and salt. When mixture is light and fluffy, fold in rice cereal. Chill 2 – 3 hours or overnight, or until mixture is firm.

2) Wearing gloves dusted with confectioner’s sugar, use a tablespoon to measure out peanut butter mixture, and roll into balls. Place balls on parchment-lined cookie sheet and keep in refrigerator until ready to dip in chocolate (the balls need to be firm, or else they will fall apart in the warm chocolate).

3) While balls are chilling, melt chocolate over a double-boiler, with water just simmering. Optional: To obtain a smoother, shiner finish, you may temper the chocolate by heating about 2/3 of the chocolate to 115F for bittersweet chocolate, and 105F for milk chocolate. Remove the chocolate from heat and add the remaining chocolate to help cool it down. Once the mixture reaches about 84F, return the mixture to heat to raise the temperature again to between 88 – 90F.

4) Using a skewer, dip peanut butter balls into chocolate, leaving tops exposed, and place on parchment to cool. If peanut butter balls become too soft, chill until firm and continue. For variations, try dipping very cold peanut butter balls into warm marshmallow fluff before dipping into chocolate, or rolling chocolate coated balls into crushed chocolate cookies. Also try using dark and milk chocolates for decorative drizzle accents.