You only need a few ingredients and a few minutes to make this easy Buckeye recipe. These classic candies are partially cloaked with a snappy chocolate shell around a creamy peanut butter center. Mine also include a special secret ingredient!
The Best Buckeye Recipe
Buckeyes are among the easiest candies out there. They call for only a handful of ingredients, require no oven, stovetop, or candy thermometer, and request a modest 15 minutes of chilling before you can coat the creamy peanut butter centers in dark chocolate.
My buckeye recipe yields candies with a rich and creamy a center thats reminiscent of peanut butter fudge or a toned down peanut butter frosting. Thanks to the salty flavors of the peanut butter and the semisweet chocolate coating, they’re not at all too sweet, and you can easily find yourself downing half a batch on your own (guilty!).
Why You’ll Love This Buckeye Recipe
- Quick & easy.
- No fancy ingredients or equipment needed.
- Sweet, but not too sweet; definitely satisfies any sweet tooth craving.
- My recipe is extra special and flavorful, thanks to a subtle secret ingredient!
What You Need
The ingredients for my buckeye recipe are simple and straightforward, but let’s discuss them before we jump in.
- Peanut butter. Creamy peanut butter is the classic, recommended choice (not crunchy, which would mess with our texture!). Unfortunately I don’t recommend using natural peanut butter, which could make the buckeyes too oily.
- Butter. This is essential for creating a rich and creamy texture. You can use salted butter or use unsalted and add salt.
- Brown sugar. This is the secret ingredients that sets my buckeye recipe apart from so many out there. Brown sugar contains a bit of molasses, and, when beaten into the creamy peanut butter filling, this deepens the flavor of this buckeye recipe just beautifully. However, a few commenters mentioned they could taste the grit from the brown sugar. I’ve never been able to detect this (nor have my taste-testers), but if this concerns you feel free to simply leave out the brown sugar without any other additions.
- Powdered sugar. This allows us to form the buckeyes into balls and stabilizes them (while adding sweetness!).
- Chocolate. You can make things easy on yourself and use melting wafers or almond bark or just use your favorite chocolate chips. If using chocolate chips, follow my instructions on how to melt chocolate in the microwave, and consider adding a bit of coconut oil or vegetable oil to make the chocolate smooth and easy for dipping.
SAM’S TIP: You could also use tempered chocolate to dip your buckeyes, I have a tutorial on how I temper chocolate in my hot chocolate bomb recipe and in my chocolate covered strawberries post!
How to Make Buckeyes
- Cream. Beat together the butter and peanut butter until smooth, then stir in your brown sugar, salt, and vanilla extract. The mixture should be smooth and creamy.
- Stir. Gradually stir in powdered sugar until it’s thoroughly combined.
- Roll the batter into smooth round balls.
- Dip. Spear each buckeye with a toothpick and use the toothpick to hold the ball as you dip it most of the way into the chocolate (don’t dip it all the way! Aim for about 75%). Transfer to a wax paper lined baking sheet to allow the chocolate to harden. Smudge the mark from the toothpick with your finger to conceal it.
SAM’S TIP: Add the powdered sugar gradually. If you add it all at once, it will be difficult for the peanut butter mixture to absorb the sugar and the batter will be dry and unmanageable, meaning you won’t be able to form it into smooth buckeye balls.
Frequently Asked Questions
These chocolate-dipped peanut butter candies resemble the buckeye nut of the American Buckeye tree. This tree is native to Ohio, and Ohio State even named their football team after them. Because of this, buckeye candies tend to be extra popular with Ohio State football fans. Here’s a detailed guide into the origins of the buckeye candy, if you’re interested!
If the powdered sugar was added too quickly and not allowed to incorporate properly, this could make your dough crumbly and difficult to roll into balls. Add the sugar slowly and stir well after each addition. Even if you did add the sugar too quickly, you can usually fix this if you just continue mixing (it will just take some time).
Also consider if you may have accidentally over-measured your sugar, unfortunately this is easy to do when measuring with cups rather than by weight (which is why I always recommend using a kitchen scale). To properly measure sugar, gently stir it and then scoop into your measuring cup and level it off. Never pack it into the cup. All of my tips on how to measure flour properly apply to measuring sugar, too.
Buckeyes can be stored for a day or two at room temperature but my preference is to refrigerate them. Refrigerated in an airtight container, they’ll keep for at least two weeks. They also freeze well, for several months.
I think you’ll love this classic, chocolate coated, creamy peanut butter treat. If you try my buckeye recipe, please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Enjoy!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Easy Buckeye Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups (475 g) creamy peanut butter (not “natural” peanut butter)
- ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter softened
- 2 Tablespoons light brown sugar firmly packed (see note)
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 ¼ cups (405 g) powdered sugar
- 2 cups (340 g) semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil or vegetable shortening
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- Combine peanut butter and butter in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until well-combined.2 cups (475 g) creamy peanut butter (not “natural” peanut butter), ½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter
- Add brown sugar, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir well.2 Tablespoons light brown sugar, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Gradually add powdered sugar until completely combined. Scoop into Tablespoon-sized balls and roll with the palms of your hand until smooth and round.**3 ¼ cups (405 g) powdered sugar
- Place on wax-paper lined cookie sheet and freeze for 15-20 minutes.
- While peanut butter balls are chilling, combine chocolate chips and coconut oil (or vegetable shortening) and heat in the microwave in 25-second intervals (stirring well in between) until chocolate is smooth and completely melted. Pour into a deep dish (I use a wide cup).2 cups (340 g) semisweet chocolate chips, 1 teaspoon coconut oil or vegetable shortening
- Remove peanut butter balls from freezer, spear the top of each peanut butter ball with a toothpick and, holding the toothpick, dip each buckeye ball into the melted chocolate.
- Return to cookie sheet and remove toothpick. Use the pads of your fingers to smooth over the toothpick mark.
- Allow chocolate to harden before eating and enjoying (placing them in the refrigerator will speed up the process of the chocolate hardening!).
Notes
Brown Sugar
Some people have commented that the addition of brown sugar makes the cookies taste a bit gritty, I have not personally found this to be the case but if you are worried about this you can leave the brown sugar out without adjusting any of the other ingredientsButter
If using salted butter, omit the salt in the recipe.Sticky Dough
If dough is too sticky to roll, add more powdered sugar, a Tablespoon at a timeChocolate
Instead of the chocolate chips and coconut oil or shortening, you can use 12 oz of chocolate melting wafers instead. Note that you can also omit the coconut oil or shortening but the chocolate may be thick and difficult to neatly dip the buckeyes into this way.Storing
Buckeyes should be stored in an airtight container. They will keep at room temperature for up to 2 days, in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks, or in the freezer for several months.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Christine Tesch
Easy to follow and tasty just like I remember when I was a kid.
Heidi_Storage
Made with 1/4 c. less powdered sugar, and added powdered sugar 1/2 c. at a time. Great consistency. I needed just a bit more than 2 c. chocolate chips–maybe I’m too sloppy a dipper! My 4-year-old “helped” until I fired her for hygiene reasons.
Sam
🤣 “fired her for hygiene reasons” I’m so glad you enjoyed them. 🙂
Katie
if I use the melting wafers, do I still need to use the coconut oil? or is that only to help the consistency of the melted chocolate chips? I don’t want to screw it up.
Sam
Hi Katie! If you are using melting wafers you can skip the oil. 🙂
August
Great easy recipe for the whole family.
Crystal
Not a fan of the recipe, aside from the brown sugar ingredient that I omitted, I followed the rest of the recipe exactly, including weighing out my ingredients.
I appreciate a recipe that has this information because it’s usually a lot more accurate than measuring cups. My scale is accurate but somehow the mixture was very crumbly. I wound up having to add almost half of a stick of extra butter to it to get the balls to form.
After I dipped them, and let them harden, the balls still seemed dryer than I remembered from past recipes.
Still giving 4 stars cause it’s an easy recipe to adjust to what you need and my husband was super happy to see them and said they were great.
Lyndsey
If you had added the brown sugar you likely wouldn’t have had the crumbly problem.
WIT
great recipe.
Kayte
novice Baker here, would it make a difference to melt the brown sugar before adding it into the peanut butter mixture? it would firm up on the fridge. would that help remove potential grittiness?
Sam
Hi Kayte! I’m not sure I would recommend melting the brown sugar as it could cause issues with the peanut butter balls not being firm enough. There is also potential for the brown sugar to resolidify while refrigerating. 🙁
WIT
Kayte, try putting your brown sugar in a food processor or blender to make the grain smaller. that may help you.
Anna Etscheid
So great I did this for Ohio state food for school
Care
Easy to follow directions. Comes out perfect every time.
Angela M Norcutt
how many does this make?
Sam
Hi Angela! It will make about 40! 🙂
Tammy l Treichel
hi. instead of closing the hole made by the toothpick I let my granddaughter press a mini chocolate chip in the hole upside down to make a tiny eye! We have churched it up with colored candy coated mini chips! Much fun and memorable
Sam
That is such an awesome idea, Tammy! I’m so glad you had so much fun making them! 🙂
Juliyana
Huge hit over the holidays! Gone in a couple of days with people asking me to make a second batch!
Marsha
Turned out great. Tooth picks didn’t work great for me. I used a plastic fork with all the prongs broken off except two.
Sam
Smart! So glad you enjoyed!
Terry Jackson
Love this recipe! Buckeyes are a family favorite but I hated making them. Seems like every recipe I made the proportions were off. Either too sticky or too dry. Constantly needing to rechill dough just to get them rolled out and having them fall off the tooth pick with dipping. I used the gram scale to measure for this recipe and they came out perfect! Easy to roll and easy to dip! I like to make them smaller (better chocolate to filling ratio) and the recipe made 75. Thank you and Happy Holidays!
M L Gasser
I was looking for a recipe with brown sugar and o came across this. I usually just substitute brown for whit and I notice the grittiness but I love them. This time though, I wanted them smooth so I just added molasses to the wet ingredients and then finished as usual. My favorite taste but no grit. YUM
Ken
Simple, easy, great tasting! If your buckeyes don’t roll smooth first go around you can pop them into the fridge for a bit, then re-roll into perfect spheres!
Austin Smith
worked out perfectly! Don’t be afraid to add a little more powdered sugar if the balls do not come out smooth.
Peggi
how many does this recipe yield?
Sam
About 40. 🙂
AK
Hi Peggi – we made these the size of actual buckeyes (we are in Ohio so we know what the “normal” size is) and it made 80. If you use a scale, before dipping in chocolate they are about 15g each. I took them to a wedding and people said they were the best buckeyes ever!