I have to admit that I bought these peanut butter cups out of curiosity. What made me curious was how they might represent something like a lava cake in a peanut butter cup form. The illustration on the package seems to suggest two ways they might approach it. The most obvious is a large glop of chocolate being poured over the top. The second more likely way is a small layer of chocolate syrup bellow the peanut butter. The reality is closer to the second way, however in the picture they don’t show that the peanut butter and chocolate sauce are separated by a layer of chocolate.

Because of the design of this bar, it’s very chocolate forward. Since it’s a Big Cup there’s still lots of peanut butter, but there’s not nearly as much peanut butter as you might find in a normal Big Cup. The chocolate lava sauce does take up some of the room that would normally be given to the peanut butter, but the layer of chocolate between the peanut butter and lava sauce also takes room away from the peanut butter. What you basically have here is a Reese’s Big Cup that’s a lot more chocolaty than a regular Big Cup, but also a lot messier.

The mess comes from the fact that the chocolate lava is very oozy. This is probably both expected and a good thing. Flavour wise I feel like the chocolate sauce doesn’t do as much, or at the very least doesn’t do more than just adding extra chocolate. Again, that’s kind of what you might expect considering the design, but I’m not sure it makes for a better Reese’s Big Cup. What I’m saying is that the chocolate sauce is oozy and maybe a little fun, but it’s not really an improvement.

The big problem is that Reese’s has spent years mastering the balance of chocolate to peanut butter in their cups. This Big Cup just ruins that balance, but does at least give you a little oozy fun. I also don’t believe that a thin layer of chocolate in the bottom is the best way to represent a lava cake. Most lava cakes I’ve eaten have a big gob of chocolate sauce in the middle. I’m not sure if that would make these cups that much better, but at least they would be a closer approximation to lava cakes.