Chocolate and Peanut Butter Deliciousness

Chocolate brownies are one of my weak spots.  And these are rich, moist, chewy brownies filled with more chocolate and topped with peanut butter cups and chocolate ganache.  Over the top perhaps, but ridiculously good--and suddenly "plain" chocolate brownies (though these are not plain) become even more special.  I used my favorite brownie recipe from King Arthur Flour for the base, and then topped it, once cool, with the ganache, chopped up peanut butter cups, and then a little more ganache.

Peanut Butter S'mores Bars

By now I think it's clear that I love chocolate and peanut butter. So it's probably no surprise that, while making s'mores bars, a layer of peanut butter somehow ended up in there. I put in a graham cracker layer, chocolate, peanut butter, and then realized as I was spreading the marshmallow fluff that peanut butter wasn't actually in the recipe. There are worse things, right? These disappeared very quickly.

Peanut Butter S'mores Bars

1/2 c butter, room temp.
1/4 c brown sugar
1/3 c white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c flour
3/4 c + cracker crumbs (I crushed up one of the three sleeves in package and used all of it)
1 tsp baking powder
4 Hershey bars (milk choc. is trad, but use whatever kind of choc. you like best)
7 oz marshmallow fluff (one container)
2-4 oz peanut butter (optional)

Line an 8x8 pan with foil and grease with butter or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350.

Cream together the butter and two sugars. Then add the egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, and baking power. Then slowly add them to the butter-sugar mixture.

Divide the dough in half and put haf in the bottom of the greased pan. Press down to fill any gaps, but don't pack it in.

Then cover the dough with a single layer of chocolate* (and peanut butter, if using, as below). Four bars should be plenty, though you might have to break them to make them fit.  *If you're using peanut butter, it's easier to spread it on the chocolate bars before you put them in the pan, than to try to spread it on them once they're already in.

Then spread on the marshmallow fluff evenly, and cover with the remaining half of the dough. I crumbled it on so it would be sandier in texture at the end.

Bake for 25-30 min., til lightly brown on top. Cool briefly and enjoy. :)

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Chocolate-Dipped PB Pretzels

Say it with chocolate--but don't forget the peanut butter. And adding crunchy, slightly salty pretzels just makes these even better. I found the recipe via Pinterest.  Below are the pretzels waiting for their chocolate bath:
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Chocolate PB Rice Krispie Bars

Theme and variation on the avalanche bars I made for the holidays. I used lots of semisweet chocolate chips, crunchy peanut butter, mini marshmallows, with extra peanuts on top. Yum.

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Christmasy Cookies

Every year I say the same thing--that I'm not going to go overboard--and every year I end up making a ton of cookies. It's not that I don't like baking cookies--clearly--but there's only so many hours in a day, nor is there a need for bazillions of cookies and candies.  This year my list kept growing and growing, but I was finally able to narrow it down to a mere 10 items.  After I baked the first eight all in one day, and I had trouble locating not-uncommon ingredients for the last two, I decided it was a sign and called it a day.  Starting at the bottom of this picture, there are triple peanut cookies with peanut m&ms, salty caramel oat caramelitas, chocolate-dipped toasted coconut macaroons, coal cookies with white chocolate chips, chewy ginger spice cookies (hiding at the very top), almond buttercrunch, and avalanche bars.  Not pictured are the peanut butter-oat dog biscuits I made, but the dog has tested them and declared them very tasty.  She didn't even bother trying to hide these--as is her usual with a treat--and just ate them right up.

Avalanche Bars

At first glance, these are just Rice Krispie treats with lots of marshmallows. But what they really are is Rice Krispies mixed with white chocolate, peanut butter, mini chocolate chips and lots of marshmallows. They're over-the-top, and not a little sweet--and regular Rice Krispie treats just don't seem the same anymore. Thanks to Cookies & Cups for the recipe.

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Acorns and Candy Corn

Happy Halloween! These little acorns are super easy to make--which is good, because they disappear very quickly. A Hershey's kiss is topped with a mini peanut butter sandwich cookie, which is then topped with a mini chocolate chip. Done. The pizza below is meant to resemble candy corn, at least in appearance. I made wide stripes of Alfredo and tomato sauce, and then a combination of the two. Once the pizza baked and the cheese melted, the candy corn resemblance kinda faded. But having three sauces on one pizza was pretty tasty nonetheless.




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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is one of my favorite things. These cookies have both chocolate and peanut butter in the dough and then again in the chips, in the form of the tiniest pb cups ever, from King Arthur Flour. Though micro-mini pb cups are hard to find and you might be tempted to use pb chips and chocolate chips instead, I can say from experience that the cookies will not taste the same, nor half as good. These pb cups don't melt into the dough, and they actually taste like peanut butter, which is not always the case. The recipe, also from KAF, can be found here.

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Don't Forget the Hound

Peanut butter-oatmeal treats for dogs, using a recipe from King Arthur Flour. Easy to make, no scary ingredients , and they are a HUGE hit.

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Snowy Day Treats

Today was a snow day, and while I did work from home, I found some time later to bake up a few things. The brownies above are chocolate fudge with a peanut butter swirl. I also played around with a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding oatmeal and switching around the sugars and flour. The result is a very tasty chocolate chip-oatmeal-pecan cookie that is soft and chewy and buttery and nutty. And chocolatey too, of course.



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The Best Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

Yesterday I turned on the oven for the first time in ages. The occasion? Nice weather! The prolonged heat and humidity had sapped me of any desire to cook. However, the suddenly almost-cool temps found me wandering the aisles of the grocery store, trying to figure out how much I could and what I should, make before the thermometer skyrockets again this weekend. Keeping it simple, I decided on Dorie Greenspan's peanut butter cookies, which are among my favorites. They're packed full of crunchy peanut butter and peanuts (I used unsalted), but they're surprisingly light and will disappear very fast. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Purple (and Green) People Eating PB Cookies

Quadruple peanut cookies made with peanut butter, peanut butter chips, chopped up peanuts, and Halloween-colored peanut M&Ms (purple, green, orange, and black.) The recipe is my own, and the cookies stay nicely soft for a while--if they last that long.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Sandwich Cookies

The combination of peanut butter and chocolate, all in one cookie, is always good. These cookies, with a creamy, crunchy, peanut buttery, chocolate chip-y filling, are really good. The recipe comes from Fine Cooking, and while they say it makes about 18 filled cookies, I made slightly smaller cookies--that is, my normal size for cookies--and ended up with 27, which is much more satisfying if you're going to go to all this effort. I also used about a heaping tablespoon of the filling, instead of the suggested scant teaspoon, as there was plenty, and a teaspoon wouldn't have been enough.

Peanut Noodles with Shrimp

Mark Bittman's Minimalist column in the New York Times this week was all about uses for the seemingly much-maligned (elsewhere) peanut butter. In my opinion, peanut butter is good with pretty much everything, you know? Bread, jelly, chocolate, cookies, brownies, pancakes, pasta, chicken, chicken soup, sauces, green beans, and especially a big glass of milk. In any case, tonight I made Bittman's recipe for peanut noodles with shrimp--a quick treat after a long week. The list of ingredients is fairly simple: peanut butter, rice noodles, shrimp, lime zest and juice, nam pla (fish sauce), sugar, garlic, chili peppers, carrots, and scallions. The final product was really really good, though I did add another spoonful of peanut butter as well as some grated fresh ginger, which I'm sure he meant to include. I also made a vegetarian version, using soy sauce instead of nam pla and tofu instead of shrimp. Doing so eliminated the quick and easy aspect of this recipe, but we were all happy, and full, in the end.

Swimming With the Phishes

In advance of a big swim meet tomorrow, Swimmer Girl and I made chocolate-peanut butter ice cream as a special treat to mark the event. And because tomorrow will be all about swimming, we added chocolate phish from Ben & Jerry's instead of chocolate chips or chunks. The recipe is from a new cookbook, The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz, and it uses half-and-half instead of all heavy cream or heavy cream and milk. The final result didn't have that filmy quality that using all heavy cream can leave, and the flavor was nicely mixed between the chocolate and peanut butter. To balance the phish, we added tiny peanut butter patties, also from Lebovitz's book--a quick and easy addition that can be made while the cream mixture chills.

Quadruple Peanut Cookies

Happy New Year's Eve! I created these cookies, which include chunky peanut butter, chopped peanuts, peanut M&Ms, and peanut chips, when trying to recreate some cookies given to me by a friend. The recipe for those cookies was top secret, so I decided to see what I could come up with. These are not those cookies, but they're also very good. My base recipe was from Dorie Greenspan's peanut butter crisscrosses. Quadruple Peanut Cookies 2 c flour 1/2 c oatmeal 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temp. 1 c chunky peanut butter 1 c light brown sugar, packed 3/4 c sugar 2 eggs 1/2 c peanuts, chopped (if you use salted, you can omit the salt above) 7 oz peanut M&Ms (approx.) 6 oz mixed peanut and milk chocolate chips Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, oatmeal, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside. In a mixer, first cream the butter and then add the peanut butter, mixing for about a minute. Then add in the sugars and beat well, 2-3 min. Add the eggs, one at a time, and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Then add the dry ingredients, mixing only until just blended. Stir in the chopped peanuts, the M&Ms, and the peanut and milk chocolate chips. The dough will be very soft and sticky. On cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, drop the cookies by tablespoons spaced about 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies for about 12-14 min., rotating the trays from top to bottom and back to front halfway through. You don't want to overcook these. The cookies should be light brown on the bottom, lighter on top, and they will still be soft and moist. Let them cool on the cookie sheets for a few minutes before transferring them to wire racks to cool completely.

Pretty Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies

Yep, more from Dorie, and they're awesome. And the batter was almost as good as the final product--light and airy and filled with peanuts. The cookies are both soft and crunchy, and though this recipe made a lot, they're going very quickly. Peanut Butter Crisscrosses (based on the recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours) Makes about 5 dozen, depending on how much dough is eaten 2.5 c flour 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt pinch of nutmeg 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp. 1 c peanut butter 1 c light brown sugar 3/4 c sugar 2 eggs 1.5-2 c chopped peanuts 1/2 c sugar for rolling the cookies 1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. 2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside. 3. In a mixer, beat the butter for 1-2 min, until creamy. Add the peanut butter and beat for another 1-2 mins. Then add both sugars and beat for another 3 min. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for about a minute after each one. 4. Scrape down the bowl, and on low speed add the dry ingredients, beating only until they are mixed in. Stir in the chopped peanuts. The dough will be very soft. 5. Pour the sugar into a small bowl. Using balls of dough up to 1 Tbs in size, roll the dough in the sugar to coat, and then place on the cookie sheets, leaving about 2 inches in between each ball. I got 12 cookies to a sheet. Then, take a fork, and use the tines to press a crisscross pattern into the top of each cookies, flattening it about halfway. 6. Bake for about 12 minutes. The cookies will be lightly colored and still soft when you take them out of the oven. Let them cool on the pans for a minute, and then transfer to wire racks and let cool completely.

Chocolate Brownie-Peanut Butter Ice Cream Sandwiches

The recipe comes from Martha, but the peanut butter ice cream I made myself. And by made I mean taking vanilla ice cream and swirling it with peanut butter and huge, lightly salted peanuts. I only made half the recipe, and the brownies didn't come out as flat as they were supposed to--but I'm not complaining, because having more brownie is never bad.