Peanut Butter Bliss

Hello, lovely...

You may not know me - you may not know of my looove of anything peanut butter and chocolate. But at Christmas time, when I have my big cookie exchange - the peanut butter ball stash goes right into the freezer and I am VERY hard-pressed to share with anyone.

You see, my friends and I have this big cookie exchange and one member is always counted on to make peanut butter balls, which are balls of sweetened peanut butter with Rice Krispies that are then dunked in chocolate. Oh my...are they ever good. And if I ever "gift" you with one - consider yourself very lucky. I don't buy Reese's peanut butter cups because well - I have no power to refuse them.

That's why it's very very dangerous to have these lovelies in the house.



Just look at that craggy goodness!

I came across this recipe on Cookie Madness, which is from Rachael Ray. Yeah, I very rarely make anything by Rachael but WOW I had to make an exception for these. I knew immediately that they were an easier and deadlier version of my beloved peanut butter balls.

I mean, just look at the ingredients. This ain't health food people. But oh my...

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Crunch (doesn't that just sound decadent?)

TWD - Chocolate-Banded Ice Cream Torte

This week's recipe was chosen by Amy of Food, Family, and Fun. It is on pages 288-289 of Dorie's book, Baking From My Home to Yours.

I just made an ice cream cake for my husband's birthday of chocolate cake and mint chocolate chip ice cream. That one fed 20 people, so I did NOT want more ice cream cake hanging around. Mini cakes, it had to be. (and they are so cute, too)

In my opinion, almost any vessel can be used for this dessert. The recipe specifies a springform pan. In the past, I have made ice cream cakes with a springform pan as well, but this past time I took a tip and poured ice cream into the same plastic-lined cake pan I would use to bake my cakes so that I'd have a perfectly frozen same-size round of cake to place on top of my baked cakes. It worked perfectly.

So this time around, I made layers of ice cream and ganache in tiny cake pans and in a mini loaf pan: 2 4-inch cake layers and one mini loaf. I think you will agree they came out too cute!



This was the first torte, right after unmolding. I like to think it was my practice one. I wised up after this, and returned the torte to the freezer after unmolding to re-harden. I also didn't run as much water over the bottom of the pan to unmold. The ganache doesn't hard-set thanks to eggs and it really didn't need much coaxing to get soft enough to unmold.



This is the second cake-shaped mini torte. I really loved how it came out, and the inside looks GREAT.

I used homemade vanilla with Godiva liqueur and lots of mix-ins here. You can see a cross-section of the chips and nuts.

For the mini-loaf, I used Blue Bell Moolennium Crunch ice cream, which is another vanilla base with lots of nuts and chips.



Do you remember those desserts in the nineties called Viennetta? I remember the commercials - slicing into a loaf-shaped dessert that seemed to have layers of something crunchy. Well, they apparently don't sell them in the US anymore. If we go back to the UK I'll have to get one. This very much reminded me of the Viennetta!



My husband just absolutely loved these tortes. He was so excited to know that after dinner every day for about 6 days he got torte for dessert. Besides, who doesn't like saying the word "torte"! I feel fancy just saying I made one. That thickest layer of ganache up there on the loaf suuuuure is good. ;)

TWD-Granola Grabbers

This week's Dorie recipe was for Granola Grabbers - cookies made from granola, fruit, nuts, and coconut. They were chosen by Michelle of Bad Girl Baking.

These were kind of unusual cookies as they had no leavening, just the good stuff, butter, egg, and a little flour. They were actually really sticky and kind of gross when I was making them into the cookies, and came out greasy on the cookie sheet.

Now, 2 days later, they are much better and have set up into a nice, chewy cookie. I would probably make them with less sweet fruit next time, up the salt, and maybe add some chips. They are pretty sweet. All the better to go with a glass of milk!



I really liked the play of the salty peanuts against the sweetness, hence why I think it could do with even more salty goodness.

Next week is an ice cream torte. I think I'm going to have to at least half that recipe, given our ingestion of ice cream around here lately...

One Bowl Brownies

I wanted to make a treat both for my Pilates instructor, who had a birthday last week, and also for hubby to take to his board-game get together. When the instructor said she loved chocolate, I wanted some thing easy and a brownie seemed to be the thing.

I was all set to make my favorite mix (because I really hate the whole melting chocolate thing) when I spied this recipe for a one-bowl brownie made with cocoa over on Cookie Madness. Cookie Madness is one of my very favorite blogs and I check it every day. Bonus is that Anna lives in Austin.

I sometimes get really tired of the really rich, fudgelike brownies made with melted chocolate. This brownie is light, still not cake-like, and has a good chocolate flavor. It produces a nice crackly top like a good brownie should, and pairs well warmed with vanilla ice cream. (Blue Bell of course!)

All recipients were happy with the results. They are also really good out of the fridge or freezer and keep well frozen for later.

I also added 1/2 cup peanut butter chips and pecans (naturally) for the top.

One Bowl Cocoa Powder Brownies

12 T. unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks)
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (natural)
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
12 walnut halves (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13×9 inch metal pan or line it with parchment or foil. If using foil, spray the foil with cooking spray. (I just used the Pam for baking - it works great)

Melt the butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl. Whisk in the sugar, then whisk in the cocoa powder, followed by the vanilla extract and eggs. When mixture is smooth, add salt and baking powder and whisk thoroughly, breaking up any lumps in baking powder and taking care that it is thoroughly distributed. Scrape sides of bowl and stir (do not beat) in the flour. Pour into pan and spread to edges. Arrange nuts over top.

Bake on center rack of oven for 22-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out with moist crumbs. Cool completely and chill before slicing.

Makes 12 or 16 (depends on how big you cut them)

TWD - Blueberry Sour Cream Ice Cream

This week's Dorie Greenspan recipe was chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity. I was pretty excited about this recipe because I haven't used my Cuisinart ice cream maker in a while.

I'm usually not a big blueberry fan, but they went really well with the sour cream. I tasted the base before it went into the fridge and I knew I was going to like the ice cream - I also knew I wanted to try other fruits!

It's a very rich ice cream, and has that characteristic twang from the sour cream. I don't think everyone would like it, but my husband and I enjoyed both flavors we made.



(The deep rich color of the blueberry - which turned out to be more of a raspberry color - in the background, and the delicate strawberry flavor in the foreground.)

For the strawberry version, I used a cup of cut up strawberries and followed the recipe for the ice cream, but used only 1/4 cup sugar. I also had to partially sub half and half for the heavy cream. It turned out great, if a bit tart. The sour cream flavor worked completely differently for the strawberries.

You don't need much of this ice cream, it's rich and flavorful and satisfies easily.

Tuesdays with Dorie

This is the first of my recipes for Tuesdays with Dorie, a baking group wherein we bake a recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan each week, then blog about it. (I can't tell you how much I am in love with this book, I keep calling it my food porn - I mean LOOK at the cover!!)

Dorie won a James Beard award for this book last year as well - it has to be good.

This week the recipe that was chosen was Black and White Banana Loaf. It's an unusual marbled cake baked in a loaf pan. The base is a banana/rum cake that is half-flavored with melted bittersweet chocolate for the marbled effect.



I had fun making this cake. I was very careful and patient with my technique, and felt like at each stage it looked the way that Dorie described. (so often I am NOT patient - I don't cream for as long as I should, don't add my eggs to the batter one by one...) I didn't hurry my oven and put the cake in before it should (my oven runs hot and it takes way longer to preheat to the correct temperature than the little beeper would have you believe).

Look at that beauuuuutiful marbling! ;)



That being said, I made two changes to the recipe-

1. I left out the lemon juice and zest from the banana/rum mixture. The idea of the lemon mixing with the chocolate just ooged me out entirely. (plus I didn't have a lemon)
   
2. In reading some of the early reviews of the recipe on the website, it seemed several people had problems with the cake setting up and excess banana seemed to be the issue. The recipe calls for 1 1/2 bananas (I wish a volume measurement had been given like my banana bread recipe, which calls 1 1/4 cups) so my frozen banana being LARGE, I opted for just the one mashed banana and decided I would check out the consistency when I was done. It was good, not too thin!

I had part trepidation and part fascination with this cake because of the unusual flavor profile. I didn't really ever taste the banana or rum, and the chocolate is very mild. It does make for a very pretty cake when cut, and I wouldn't hesitate to give it to friends as a gift or take to a potluck. The flavor however, just doesn't wow me enough for me to make this again just for us to eat.