Peanut Butter Cream Eggs

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

Sometimes I drop the tasty cheapskate ball. When I do, it's usually about pictures.

This week my sister was here with her four kids. She brought me a gorgeous peanut butter cream egg. Do I have a picture?

No.

Then Wednesday, while I made dinner, she and several of the kids proceeded to make and then decorate approximately 10 million more peanut butter cream eggs. They were so beautiful--an army of spring calorie bombs marching along the table. Did I get a picture of that?

Nope.

So today after my sister left (and I took myself a luxurious couch nap because Bec and I had stayed up till after midnight every single night because we are masochists). Anyway, after that, I scrounged around for a single solitary egg to photograph. My youngest daughter had one that I snagged, and then another daughter came out about to eat hers and I stole it too. That's all we had.

The moral of this story: Make these. They're not hard. They make great gifts, look beautiful in Easter baskets, and are a big crowd favorite. You'll be lucky to have a couple left at the end of the day.

Peanut Butter Cream Eggs
Makes about 30 1 1/2 inch long eggs
Prep time: 30-40 minutes, but there's some wait time while things harden/set.
Cost: $3.05 and if you flavor it with coconut, peanut butter, or chocolate that will add another $.50-1.00
(sugar: .60, butter: .40, chocolate: 2.00, other: .05)

1/3 C butter, significantly softened 
1/2 C peanut butter (crunchy or creamy depending on your preference; you can also use Nutella in place of the peanut butter if you want to go with more chocolate)
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 Tbsp milk (or cream, if you're a stickler about keeping the 'cream' in your butter cream--I used milk and it was very good)
1/2 tsp salt
2-4 C powdered sugar
1 bag (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips (or melting chocolate or white chocolate or whatever shivers your timbers)

Soften/Melt butter. Add peanut butter, then vanilla, then milk. Add salt and powdered sugar. Mix by hand. It will turn into a thick mixture. I like mine a little  softer (because dry PB eggs are the worst), but having it a little thicker makes it easier to work with. Just add the powdered sugar bit by bit at the end. You need to be able to roll it into a ball. 

Refrigerate the filling, and then when it's firm, roll it into egg-shaped balls. 



When it is rolled, melt your chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals. (Note: If using real chocolate, melt until a few chunks remain and then stir until those are melted. This will keep it from getting that white swirly-old-chocolate the next day.) 

You can use nice chocolate (my preference) or melting chocolates. Melting chocolates do not taste NEARLY as good, but they are delightfully easy to melt; they harden quickly, and they re-melt beautifully, and they don't ever get the white swirly-old-chocolate look. We opted for real chocolate on the overall egg and melting chocolate for the swirly parts. 

When the chocolate is melted, dip the eggs. You can use a slotted spoon, or you can blob and drizzle it in a completely messy, but finger lickin' good kind of way. 



Allow chocolate to harden, then decorate if you wish. If you'd like to give them away, you can put them in little muffin liners or bon bon liners (depending on size). Then put them in a small plastic gift bag. My sister did this and it looked like it had been bought from a store. Ours never quite hit that level. 

Note: I have instructions for other flavors (plain butter cream, chocolate, and coconut) on another post. Feel free to hop on over HERE if you'd like. 

Secret Recipe Club--Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles

This month I had Oh! You Cook for Secret Recipe Club. I wasn't planning to make a dessert. I was intrigued by several posts Dena had about artists favorite foods--like this Georgia O'Keefe watercress soup. And I'd even purchased leeks to make a nice healthy potato leek soup (Claude Monet, in case you were wondering). And then evilness happened. Or, well, the weekend when I was all set to make my nice healthy soup, I didn't want nice healthy soup. I wanted, well, the truth is that I wanted cookies. So I went back to Dena's blog to scour around for cookies and I found this.

They weren't quite cookies, but I was pretty sure they would hit the spot and then some. Also, I had a half-used bag of pretzels languishing in my pantry. I felt it was my duty to use them up--food waste being a sin and all. So I made these and they were utterly fantastic and you should make them too.

Additionally, they're easy to do and with Easter coming they could easily be shaped into little darling eggs. Some of mine came out pretty egg-shaped without even trying. But we didn't wait till Easter to eat them.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles
adapted from Oh! You Cook
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $2.10
pretzels: .30, peanut butter: .50, chocolate chips: 1.00, sugars: .25, butter: .05

1 1/4 C pretzels
1/2 C creamy peanut butter
1 Tbl. unsalted butter, room temperature
2 Tbl. brown sugar
3 Tbl. confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1-2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Put your pretzels in a large Ziploc bag, then roll them with a rolling pin. My kids thought this was awesome. You'll have 1/3-1/2 C crushed pretzels--you want them crushed to small pieces, but not to powder (thus you might want to avoid the food processor this time). Set these aside.

In a small bowl, mix peanut butter, butter, brown sugar and confectioners' sugar, stirring until blended and as smooth as possible. 

Reserve 1 Tbsp of the crushed pretzels. Then add the rest to the peanut butter mixture and mix.

Roll these into balls. I put my dough into the freezer for 20 minutes or so, so they were easier to roll. 

After they're rolled, melt your chocolate. I did this in the microwave in 20 second intervals. When it's melted, you can either dip the peanut butter pretzel balls in, but that sounded hard and messy to me and I'm shamelessly lazy. So I put my balls on parchment paper and simply plopped chocolate onto them. This meant their bottoms didn't get covered, but we didn't mind (although having a fully covered chocolate give you that satisfying crack of the chocolate shell when you bite into them...)

Then sprinkle with remaining pretzel crumbles.

Allow chocolate to harden. We did this in the freezer for about 20 more minutes. You can also do the fridge, or--if you have the patience of Job--just leave them on the counter for several hours. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE

An InLinkz Link-up

Easy Lollipops

You guys know I'm not Princess Crafty, right? If you don't, then I'm going to assume that you are legally blind. At any rate, for our Mom-run preschool, I had the letter 'L' and I always say nothing says Love Like Lollipops. Okay, I never say that, but wouldn't it be great if I did for letter L week. Anyway, I was looking on the internet for "Easy Lollipop" recipes and, folks, I was not finding easy recipes. I was finding the types of recipes that need a candy thermometer and lollipop molds and silicone sheets and--do you know how hot melted sugar gets--hotter than preschool-level hot--that's how hot.

So I turned to a little book I got my own preschooler for Christmas. It's called, Candy Aisle Crafts and is lovely. We got it from the library and Emma was obsessed with it. She'd look through the pictures and make requests. For weeks. Until I finally had to return it and she was sad. So I bought her her own for Christmas (shhhh). Now, in all honesty, some of the ideas in the book are what I like to call "sheer lunacy" (making polar bears from marshmallows types of things), but others--like the entire section on using hard candies to make simple lollipops--I must in all humility refer to as "sheer brilliance." You take hard candies (crushed or whole) and you arrange them over a lollipop-esque stick (we just used skewer type sticks), and you bake them and they come out all glued together and abstract art-ish and fabulous. The kids can help; they can arrange their candies in any old way they please. And then you pop them in the oven till they melt together. And then they cool. And that, my internet friends, is an easy lollipop. A kid-help-friendly lollipop. A lollipop that is easy to Like and Love and Lick and Linger on.

It is also a lollipop that can be easily and whimsically adapted to the holidays. To be honest, I'd choose one of these over a gingerbread house any day. With these I get almost no parental work and your kids still get the sugar orgy. Win!Win?

You can use them to decorate, to craft/eat with your kids, or to give as gifts if you have hard-candy loving friends. 

Here's what you do:
1. Preheat oven to 275.
2. Cover your baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper. If you do not do this, your candy will stick and you will hate your life for at least several hours afterwards (possibly even a whole day).
3. Arrange your candies. Use any old stick you've got. We used skewers. You can use whole candies, or crush them. Naturally I opted for whole ones since crushing/breaking candies sounded like a lot of messy work.

4. Bake. Start with five minutes, and check, although if you're using hard Starlight mint style candies like we did, you can probably start checking at 8 of 9 minutes. Our lollipops took about 12 minutes total, but you do want to check yours if you're using different types of hard candy (say Jolly Ranchers) because if they melted too much they'd spread all over everywhere.

5. When they've melt-molded to your satisfaction, take them out, let them cool, and then they're good for eating, or using as decorations, or giving away.

Note: Try to use similar types of hard candy--say all Jolly Ranchers or all round mints. Why? Because different hard candies have different melting points and if they're not matched somewhat evenly, then some will be super spread when the others haven't begun to budge. We did try a bag of assorted candies and all had generally the same (or close enough melting points except the Werther's-style candies).

Note: Know that they shatter. After preschool, I found myself sweeping and mopping my floor. So don't let your kids wander around chomping on these unless you want peppermint speckled carpet for the holidays.

Note: If you plan to give them away, you may want to parcel them up in parchment paper for classic Christmas prettiness and for unstickiness.

Pretzel Bark

Okay, so this is floating around Pinterest right now. And it totally deserves to be. I had first tried it over a month ago when my brother made it for us while we were visiting Mom. I came home and bought myself a bag of pretzels (I never buy pretzels). But I sat on them for a while (no, not literally) because there's this problem with pretzel bark--namely that I want to eat it all--all half a bag of pretzels, 2 sticks of butter, 1 C of sugar, a bag plus a little of chocolate chips. ALL. Eating it all is what I'd like to call a bad idea. So I needed to wait until we had an event to make this. Fortunately, last night we had a singing night with some of our friends. This was my chance, and a perfect chance it was because I was tired and really not interested in making anything that took much effort. Pretzel bark takes 10 minutes of effort (and also some chill time, which requires patience, but not effort). Of course the 10 minutes of effort is sort of a problem too because do you really need 5000 calories to be ready for you in 10 minutes. Well, maybe not. But this can come in very handy when you need to make a butt-kicking dessert for an event and you're short on time. If that's not wonderful enough, you can always dress it up for whatever holiday is upcoming by using some colored meltable chocolate drizzled on top or by adding seasonal sprinkles.

The only down side of this treat is that it needs to be stored in the refrigerator or freezer since it gets too soft at room temperature. But then, considering those 5000 calories sitting in your house, maybe it's a good thing after all to have to tuck it away in your freezer. Last night after our guests left, I put it away promptly. I knew that if I didn't, I would eat it all. ALL. I'm even nervous to get it out to take a picture right now for this blog because, well, you know--it will be there in my hands and all. And then I might lick a finger off. And then I might try just a nibble. And then, well, it's kind of like alcoholism. Only more caloric. We just don't need to go there.

Pretzel Bark
from Mama Say What
Makes 1 cookie sheet full
Prep time: 10 minutes
Chill time: at least an hour
Cost: $4.25
pretzels: .90, butter: 1.00, chocolate chips: 2.00, sugar: .35

Note: The original recipe said to sprinkle sea salt on top of the chocolate. I did this on part, wanting to see if it made a difference since this is already a play on sweet/saltiness. I did like it better, but I'm a real salt/chocolate/caramel kind of girl. Either way, it's delicious.

1/2 bag of pretzels (8 oz.)
1 C (2 sticks) butter
1 C brown sugar
1 bag chocolate chips
salt, colored sugar, or whatever for sprinkling on top

Preheat oven to 350.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil (do it; this stuff gets sticky). Arrange your pretzels thereon. My brother used those waffle pretzels, which lined up beautifully. However, they cost more than twice as much so I went traditional with mine.

In a saucepan, melt your butter, then add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Bring to a gentle boil and let it boil for just a minute (it should thicken just a bit and the bubbles should get a bit bigger).

Drizzle this over your pretzels and put it in the oven (be careful because your pan will already be a bit hot from the hot caramel). Bake at 350 for 5 minutes.

Take out and put the chocolate chips on top.

Let them melt (you can throw them back in the oven for a minute--only a minute--or you can just let them melt on the hot caramel). Gently spread the chocolate around.

Sprinkle on salt if using, or sprinkles or decorative colorful melting chocolate.

Let cool, then put in the freezer until hard--about an hour.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Chocolate Molds

So I really wanted to get my red velvet cake posted sometime before Valentine's Day because I love it and it loves me, and because it is beautiful and red and even a bit of a tradition for around here. But I've been kind of in run-around-like-crazy-and-show-up-late-sometimes-but-at-least-I'm-getting-there mode this last week and cake just hasn't made it to the top of my to-do list. Which means I'll probably be running around on Valentine's Day getting it made at the last minute. Which means I should probably get my sorry behind into the kitchen right now and make some cake and take some photos before I lose my light for the day. And then I should lovingly wrap and freeze the layers so that come Tuesday I can lovingly and calmly assemble my beautiful cake and also wear my frilly apron and some pearls and thereby resemble June Cleaver (or other iconic homemaker of your choice). I also should be more careful about run-on sentences. But instead I am going to take a nap. And you should too.

I'll tell you what I have had time for though. I've had time for chocolate popsicles. They take 3 minutes to throw together and then a few minutes in the freezer and then your kids are really really delighted about dessert. Granted, you'll have to buy the popsicle molds (or another chocolate mold) if you don't have any. But you really ought to because having a heart-shaped mold can provide years of Valentine's fun. And also cheapness. A bag of decent quality chocolate can so totally compete with a box of over-priced cheap chocolate in a pink and red bag/box. If you get really good at the whole decorating thing, you could even give these away to actual people who are not in the single-digit age range.

You can leave them just chocolate or you can chop up some old candy canes and throw those on for a red and white peppermint flare. (Of course, I won't judge you if you just put the candy canes in the Christmas box and save them for next year. I didn't say I wouldn't make fun of you, like I do my very own mother when she does this very same and slightly grody thing, but I won't judge you.) You could add a little coconut oil to your chocolate for something silky and special. Or you could let your kids go at it with sprinkles or M & M's or nuts or coconut flakes. Whatever you do it's sure to be lazy and cheap and chocolate-y. And you don't even have to show up at Walmart to accomplish this. Win and win.

Butter Cream Eggs: Coconut, Peanut Butter, and Chocolate

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch as our family of 6 tries to eat on $6/day while consuming over many Easter treats.

There are family traditions we choose keep and family traditions we choose to leave behind. And somehow there are family traditions that we sort of slip out of--one year we don't have the time or means to do it and the next year we kind of don't think about it as much and then, whoosh, it's gone.

At least until your mother sends you a package with several butter cream eggs and you give your sister a call and end up talking about butter cream eggs and then find yourself at 9:30 at night experimenting with flavors of butter cream egg fillings--the ones you remember your mother making for the church fundraiser, the ones you got big as an ostrich egg in the center of your basket every Easter. Back then my favorite was peanut butter (tell me it's a shock). As of today it's got some stiff competition.

(peanut butter, coconut, chocolate)

And here, let me take a little moment to give my mother a call out and a thank you. Thank you, Mom, for sending me those butter cream eggs with all their happy memories. Thank you for making them all those years--for us and the church fundraiser. Thank you for all the effort you gave to providing 5 kids with lots of happy holiday memories--food and otherwise. And thank you for every care package you ever sent. They have all been cherished and I hope you know that.

The butter cream eggs we got as kids were huge. You certainly couldn't eat them in a day. I remember slicing slivers off of mine each day and storing the rest carefully wrapped in the refrigerator (I was one of those kids who was just finishing off Halloween candy when Easter rolled around.) My kids will not be so lucky. The ones I made today are small. (Sorry, kids.) There are a couple of reasons for this (they're so cute, there's more chocolate coating...), but the big one is that my kids get candy all the time. I do not remember having any Easter candy (or any other candy for that matter) before Easter. Also, I walked uphill to school both ways. Also, my parents didn't go nuts with the candy. We got our butter cream egg, one Cadbury egg (it was the only one we saw all year), some peeps (yuck), and jelly beans and robin eggs. It was certainly plenty; it was more than plenty. But these days (and, yes, I know when people start saying 'these days' they are old) kids get more candy. My kids have had a frightening amount of it all week. And so they will receive a miniature version of my beloved childhood favorite. But small or not, they will be given with the same amount of love; and plenty of chocolate coating. Viva tradition.

Butter Cream Eggs
Makes about 30 1 1/2 inch long eggs
Prep time: 30-40 minutes, but there's some wait time while things harden/set.
Cost: $3.05 and if you flavor it with coconut, peanut butter, or chocolate that will add another $.50-1.00
(sugar: .60, butter: .40, chocolate: 2.00, other: .05)

2-4 C powdered sugar (original recipe calls for 1 pound--that seems like way way too much to me)
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 C butter, significantly softened (Note: The original recipe calls for this to be equal parts margarine and butter, but I didn't have margarine, and all was well with all butter. I mean, how could all not be well with all butter?)
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 Tbsp milk (or cream, if you're a stickler about keeping the 'cream' in your butter cream--I used milk and it was very good)
1 bag (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips (or melting chocolate or white chocolate or whatever shivers your timbers)

Combine all ingredents except chocolate by hand. If it's too dry, add a bit more more milk.

Now you can leave it at that. Or you can add some other flavorings (I highly recommend other flavorings; I find the plain buttercream a little uninteresting). I tried coconut, peanut butter, and chocolate. (The chocolate was my favorite, but I thought they were all very good.)

For Coconut: Add 1 1/2 C shredded coconut (You can also substitue the vanilla extract for 1/2 tsp coconut extract if you wish).

For Peanut Butter: Add 1/2 C peanut butter.

For Chocolate: Add 5-6 Tbsp cocoa powder.

For Nutella: Add 1/2 C Nutella

What I haven't tried, but think would be awesome:
1) Orange or lemon--1-2 Tbsp juice and 1-2 tsp of zest ought to do it.
2) Peppermint--add 1/2 tsp peppermint extract and a couple drops of green food coloring.

Refrigerate the filling and then when it's nice and firm, shape it into egg-shaped balls.

Get a sheet of wax paper ready because you're going to coat the eggs with chocolate. Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave by microwaving in 20-30 second intervals until chocolate is mostly melted. When it's nearly melted, take it out and mix it until the last bits of chocolate melt (this method sort of tempers the chocolate--it's not an exact science; I guess I'm not an exact science kind of a girl, but it will help keep your chocolate from getting white streaks in it after it's set.)

Then you're going to coat the eggs with chocolate. Truly I have no idea how my mother used to do this. I tried dipping. That didn't work very well because the chocolate was too thick. I tried using a spoon to sort of drizzle over/cover the eggs. Also not successful. Finally, I settled on holding the egg, smearing the chocolate on the bottom and sides with my finger and then plopping it down on the wax paper and smearing it on the top, again with my finger. I can only imagine the health code violations that were committed via this method. (Of course, I didn't lick the chocolate off my fingers when I was done; what kind of establishment do you think I'm running here. I let my assistant lick them instead. Because she is cute.) Anyway, it might not be the neatest way in the world, but it worked.

And then I looked over and discovered my other assistant sitting on the tray of her high chair, licking 2 spoons. Did I mention I will not be opening a restaurant any time soon?

And then I let them (the eggs, not my assistants) set until the chocolate was firm. This took an hour or two.

Now I was ready to decorate them. Of course, this isn't essential, but Mom always did when we were little and it makes them so much prettier. Even when you have the decorating skills of an aquatic mammal as I flatter myself to have, they will turn out pretty with a few nice Easter colors. Just stick some decorating tips in some Ziploc bags...

And have at it. (I'll post my basic vanilla frosting recipe below.)

If you have assistants you can let them have at it too.

By the way, leftover frosting, no problem.

Oh--and leftover chocolate from earlier. Well, if your mother truly loved you, she probably sent you some chocolate molds from your childhood like my mother did. Otherwise, have a look here for some on Amazon.

(The chocolate was getting a little hard and weird by the time I got it in the molds, but better than washing any leftover semi-sweet down the drain, right?)

You can save these eggs for Easter or eat them for dessert tonight or send them off to your children's teachers as gifts (providing you waited to lick the chocolate and icing off your fingers until after you were done with the project).

Basic Vanilla Frosting:
Cost: .60
(sugar: .25, butter: .30, other: .05)

1 C powdered sugar
4 Tbsp butter, significantly softened
1-2 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

Combined butter, sugar, and vanilla and mix. Add 1 Tbsp milk and the other if the frosting needs it. Add food coloring if desired.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Simple Chocolates with Coconut Oil

Cheap Eat Challenge: Watch or join us as our family of 6 eats, or tries to on $6/day.

I like a little sweet after my kids go to bed. Sometimes a piece of fruit will do. Or a breakfast cookie. But at other times, I want something either really chocolate-y or just really intense--something that a nice cold orange--no matter how juicy and perfect--just isn't going to satisfy. But I usually don't need a whole lot of something intense. Just a little something that can be savored a bit, loved. And I find it easiest to stop at a little sweet if there is, in fact, a small sweet waiting for me (perhaps with a nice mug of herbal tea). The whole grabbing a few chocolate chips thing has never worked for me. I find it incredibly unsatisfying for whatever reason, which means--ironically--that I end up eating more and more in the vain hope that at some point it will become satisfying. It never does. Because of this, I often expend a little effort to make a few chocolates for the times when a chocolately craving calls.

The chocolates I make are usually almost stupidly simple. Sometimes I cover nuts or coconut or dried fruit (on wax paper) to make little chocolate clusters. But recently, I have become acquainted with coconut oil. (Thanks, Vanessa!) It is solid below 72 degrees and liquid above that. It is purported to have all kinds of health benefits--it's supposed to boost your immune system, be good for your hair and skin, and even aid in weight loss. If you'd like to read more on that, have a look here. I like an oil that claims health benefits because it makes me feel better about my evening sweet. And coconut oil is perfect, because not only are you eating healthfully (go on, tell it to yourself), it also lends a bit of coconut-y exotic-ness to your otherwise stupidly simple chocolates. My oil, by the way, is from Mountain Rose Herbs.

Simple Chocolates with Coconut Oil
Makes 10-12
Prep time: 3-4 minutes
Chill time: 15-60 minutes
Cost: .70
(chocolate: .50, coconut oil: I'm not entirely sure--mine was gifted to me, but from looking online and estimated for just a couple tablespoons, I'm guessing about .20)

Note on molds: These can be purchased online or at stores like Michael's for a couple bucks. Or, if your lucky, at a yard sale or thrift shop. They come in handy for dressing lots of simple things up.

Note on chocolate: I use Ghiradelli 60% chocolate chips. I like them. They're a decent chocolate for fairly cheap. If you want to go fancier, knock yourself out. I'm certainly not opposed to the use of higher-quality chocolate. However, although Hershey's and Nestle are fine, I won't recommend them like I do the Ghiradelli.

Note on melting: I melt my stuff in the microwave. Otherwise you should use a double boiler or a bowl that is put over the top of a pan with water simmering in it (the lip of the bowl should be bigger than the lip of the pan so it's suspended above the simmering water in the pan).

Note on tempering: If you are very fussy about how your chocolates look, I must tell you that when you heat and then cool ordinary chocolate chips, the chocolate can get spotty. I did not have this problem when I made it with the coconut oil. (See, more coconut oil magic). However, if spottiness proves to be a problem for you and if it bothers you (it affects appearance, not taste), you can buy tempered chocolate or learn to temper (cool at a rate where the spottiness won't happen) your own chocolate by looking online.

1/2 C Ghiradelli chocolate chips
1-2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 Tbsp shredded coconut for sprinkling

Put chocolate chips and coconut oil in microwave safe bowl and nuke them for about 20-30 seconds. Stir. Repeat this at 20 second intervals until chocolate is mostly melted. (My coconut oil was in solid form when I started, so I had a few chunks of that still hanging about as well.) Take it out and stir it until the chocolate melts (I've found that leaving a few chunks and stirring them until melted kind of sort of tempers your chocolate.) Pour the liquid into molds. If desired drop a pinch of shredded coconut on the bottom of the mold. Cool on counter; or refrigerate if you're impatient like me.

When they've hardened, tap them out onto a clean counter, seal in an air-tight container and refrigerate.

Note: If you house is warm, you'll need to keep these refrigerated; if you don't the coconut oil will make them soft and melty.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

P.S If you're digging the whole homemade chocolates thing, give these homemade peanut butter cups a try (though if you plan to have one a night for any amount of time, you should hide them from your husband and kids). 

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Cheap Eat Challenge Count Down: 12 days

Don't have a mold? Worry not.

Yeah, these are good. To say they are merely better than the store bought kind would be to stab me in the heart. They are in a different league. Also, they are easy to make. And gluten-free if you've got a Christmas friend in need of such a treat. My gosh, does that make them a health food? Just don't ask your scale.

Seriously, though, if you've never made your own candy, you ought to give it a go. All homemade food is beautiful in its own right. Which is partly what makes home cooking somewhat spiritual in nature. To cook food is a small act of creation. In this, as well as other ways, it can be deeply satisfying. Which is why, even though there will be a fair amount of eating-too-many-of-these jokes throughout this post (because some in this family--who have metabolisms to handle it--can pop these babies into their mouths whole as though the peanut butter balls were wee chocolate chips), I usually just eat just one. Slowly. Happily. And that's all I need.

It's a much different experience that tossing something into your cart at check-out and, honesty--HONESTLY--it doesn't take much longer. Not including the periods of waiting for chocolate to set up, these probably took me 7 minutes to make. Not counting chocolate melting times, they probably took me 4 minutes.

And if making your own food is good, is spiritual, decorating your food is just one step further. If it were perfectly healthy, it'd be, like, food nirvana. Beautification is its own little department in the bureau of home cooking. It's not a step I always take, but with these it's easy. The melted chocolate does all the work. I believe that beautiful chocolates make women feel beautiful. If they made us feel like gross, piggy slobs, they wouldn't be given on Valentine's Day, now would they. Make them yourself and you'll feel better than beautiful. You'll feel powerful and beautiful. Now that's a food worth savoring.

If you're using a mold (they cost a buck or two at Michael's), you'll fill them with melted chocolate on the bottoms and sort of paint it up the sides with your finger. Let it harden.

  While the chocolate is setting, mix up the peanut butter filling. It won't be rock hard, but it'll be rollable.

Once your chocolate is set, add a blob of peanut butter goodness.

Then pour more chocolate on the top and voila.

Bang the mold on the counter a few times to get any air pockets out. And let it harden. Then turn the mold over and press them out.

If you're making balls, roll the peanut butter delight into balls, place them on wax or parchment paper, then dribble melted chocolate on the top.

After they've set you can flip them over and do the bottoms, but by the time I got to that step there were only 4 left (true story) and that didn't seem worth bothering about. (Though I do like the contrast of the shelled outside and the soft middle--if, you know, you and yourn have 30 minutes or so of willpower.)

If you'd like the outside to be a thinner chocolate, put a smear of melted (and not extremely hot) chocolate in the palm of your hand and roll the ball around in it.

A note on chocolate. You can buy tempered chocolate. That way your chocolate won't get light-colored splotches on it in a day or so. (Also, I hear that using very high quality chocolate helps with splotching.) You can temper your own chocolate by cooling it off at the right rate. I hear that this can be done by melting the chocolate (either in the microwave or over a double broiler), then taking it away from the heat source and adding about an ounce of hard chocolate and mixing it in until it's melted.
But you'll have to read up on the internet for more information on this because I never mess with it. First of all, it doesn't change the taste, only the appearance of the chocolate. Secondly, did you miss the part about how I couldn't even do the bottoms of my chocolate balls because there were only four left. Ahem.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups
Makes (I forgot to count) at least 30

Filling:

Note: If using a mold or if you want a really creamy center, you can scale back the sugar to 2 C. With the reduced sugar, you might have to get it good and cold in the refrigerator if you're rolling it into balls. It will be worth it because it is so creamy and awesome, but it requires foresight, which can be lacking in this household.

3 oz. cream cheese
2 1/2 T butter
2 1/3 C powdered sugar
1/4 C peanut butter

Beat cream cheese and butter together. Beat in powdered sugar, then peanut butter.

Roll into balls and cover with melted chocolate. You'll probably use about 1 C or 6 oz. chocolate.

How to melt chocolate:

I do it lazy style. I pour chocolate chips (semi-sweet or bittersweet) onto a plate and microwave in 20 second intervals, mixing each time the microwave dings until they're melted.

You can also use a double boiler and just pour them into the top and mix until melted.

If you don't have a double boiler or a microwave, you can put a bowl over a pan of boiling water (as in find a bowl with a top just bigger than your pan's top so the bowl is suspended above the bottom of the pan). Then get the water boiling and mix the chocolate in the bowl until it melts. But seriously, this is the type of instruction that keeps people from doing this sort of thing. Just put it in the microwave. 20 second intervals.

Dribble and harden. And eat. With joy. With love. Power. Beauty.

PRINTABLE RECIPE