Peanut But­ter Easter Eggs

In­gre­di­ents: 

3/​4 cup creamy peanut but­ter
1/​2 cup but­ter, soft­ened
1/​2 t. vanilla
2-1/​3 cup con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar
1 cup gra­ham cracker crumbs (Short­bread cook­ies also work well.)
1-1/​2 cups dark choco­late chips
2 T. short­en­ing
Ic­ing, M&MS, col­ored sugar and/​or sprin­kles for dec­o­rat­ing

Recipe:

Beat to­gether peanut but­ter, but­ter and vanilla un­til blended. Grad­u­ally beat in con­fec­tion­ers’ sugar and crumbs. Chill for a bit to make dough eas­ier to han­dle. 

Di­vide dough into 16 pieces. Shape into eggs. Place on wax pa­per-lined cookie sheet. Chill for at least 30 min­utes, or un­til firm. 

Mi­crowave choco­late chips and short­en­ing un­til melted. Stir un­til smooth. Dip eggs in choco­late mix­ture, let­ting ex­cess drip off. Re­turn eggs to cookie sheet. If us­ing M&Ms, col­ored sugar or sprin­kles, dec­o­rate eggs while choco­late is still soft. Chill at least 30 min­utes again. If us­ing ic­ing, dec­o­rate af­ter eggs have chilled.

Orig­i­nal recipe from Taste of Home mag­a­zine web­site, sub­mit­ted by Mary Joyce John­son of Penn­syl­va­nia.