Sometimes, and perhaps more often than I care to admit, I get a wickedly insatiable craving for chocolate. I’m not above eating chocolate chips by the handful – whatever works in a pinch. But truthfully, that doesn’t always do the trick. Sometimes, I also want something a little salty, too.
Enter, Cuban Lunches.
Have you ever heard of Cuban Lunches? According to my mom, they used to be a chocolate bar back in the 80’s {Update: Aunty Wendy says they go back to the 50’s} Oh, and she says they were “really good”, but doesn’t often elaborate further. So I did some very scientific investigating to try to get more deets.
According to the internet, the chocolate bar was manufactured in Winnipeg. And since it’s on the internet, it must be true. The bars included peanuts and dark chocolate, and their tagline was “It doesn’t have to be lunchtime to enjoy a Cuban Lunch”. How clever.
And if you’re interested, there’s a Facebook group called “Bring Back the Cuban Lunch Chocolate Bar!!”.
Other than that, I couldn’t find much.
Just looking at the old timey advertisements for the stuff leads me to believe that my homemade version is a little better than the original.
Why, you ask?
Because mine have a boat-load of potato chips in ’em. That’s why!
Like most recipes, this one has changed over time. People adapt ingredients to suit their tastes and new versions are born. When I stumbled upon this “recipe” (if you can even call it that), it was in a cookbook of recipes compiled by students and their families at my elementary school. Mom saw the recipe and was like, “Hey! I haven’t had one of those in forever” and so we made them, and have been making them ever since.
The recipe in the book included peanuts, but we never had peanuts on hand at home, so we always just made them with melted chocolate and potato chips, and now that’s what we know as Cuban Lunches. I used to use about half the bag of chips, and there was lots of extra chocolate that would pool at the bottom of the cupcake liner, and form a candy similar in shape and size to a Reese Peanut Butter Cup.
One day, I decided to add more chips, which prevented the pooling of chocolate, and when I scooped them into the liner, they held their round shape. That’s my favourite way to make them! Heavy on the chips!
But the beauty of this recipe, is that you can use whatever quantities your heart desires. It’s in your best interest to make them a few times, varying the quantities of chips each time to see how you like ’em best. And give me a call when you’re making a batch, and I’ll come over and help you devour them.
Ingredients
- 1 270g pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 270g pkg butterscotch chips
- 1 270g pkg beanut Butter chips
- 1 255g pkg ripple potato chips, crushed
Instructions
- Place paper cupcake liners on a cookie sheet and set aside.
- In the top of a double boiler, melt together semi-sweet, butterscotch and peanut butter chips.
- Stir in crushed potato chips. Add as much or as little of the bag as you want. I like mine heavy on the chips (you get more cuban lunches this way).
- Scoop about 2 tbsp of the mixture into each cupcake liner and let them sit until firm. You can also pop them into the fridge to speed up the process.
Nutritional calculation was provided by WP Recipe Maker and is an estimation only. For special diets or medical issues please use your preferred calculator
This combines everything I love in a guilty pleasure snack – chocolate, peanut butter and salty chips. Seriously, what else do you need? I also love that it’s based off a Canadian chocolate bar too. Go Canada, whoo!
We make something similar only with pretzels, but I LOVE the idea o potato chips instead. No deciding between crunchy/ salty, and creamy/sweet. Bookmarking to make! Thanks for sharing.
So this makes me sound old as the hills but I remember Cuban lunches. I had no idea they disappeared as I don’t really eat grocery store chocolate bars anymore. I have to wonder, though, why were they called Cuban lunches? I am pretty sure the people in Cuba had nothing so luxurious.
I think this might be a great addition to our family Christmas goodie platter, pinning on that board!
Hi Sweetie – this does date me as well – but I do remember these Cuban Lunch bars. These were around in the 50’s maybe even before I believe made by Nutty Club, the original ones were made with peanuts and chocolate only (good tasting chocolate at that time) and poured into an approx. 3″ x 21/2″ and 1″ thick (8 cm x 6 cm x 1 cm) red cupcake liners. Your version sounds good too – will try these with Haileigh over spring break.
Made by Paulins, Nutty club offered to buy them when a Quebec company was shutting the Winnipeg plant.
There is a facbook page dedicated to the history, “Canadian Candy Nostalgia”. Recipe sounds delicious, does anyone find the potato chips stick to the teeth? Which potato chip brand would be best for them? We have some unique
Canadian Potato chip brands, so that could be win-win!
I think there’s a facebook group called “Bring Back the Cuban Lunch” as well. I just use plain Ripple chips.
Lay’s ripple chips is what I use. They stay nice & crunchy. I crush them in the bag fairly fine. People can’t figure out that something difference in them that way..