Entries from December 17th, 2011

Peanut Butter Balls

December 22nd, 2011 · No Comments

Peanut butter balls are a treat that my family would make every Christmas. I haven’t made them for a few years, so I decided to have a shot at it. I saw this recipe online and I thought I’d give it a try, even though it wasn’t my family’s recipe. Basically you just mix everything together, make balls, and dip them into melted chocolate. I used a dark chocolate to try to counter balance the sweetness of the sugar. Also, I had some peanut butter chips in the cupboard leftover from something else, so I added one to each ball before the chocolate dried. We used to make bigger balls (ha!) but I like to have them small and bite sized.

Note to self: Put lotion on your hands.

The verdict? Too sweet! My family’s recipe uses granular sugar and crushed graham crackers and less butter. I think I like the flavor and texture of those ingredients better. Also, sometimes I would use crunchy (or part crunchy) peanut butter to give them a little bit more snap. Next time… For now, here’s the recipe that I used, if you’re into sweet balls!

Peanut Butter Balls
From: Sweet Anna’s

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (Note: I did not use oil)

In a large bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, butter & vanilla until smooth. Dump in the powdered sugar and stir until too stiff to stir with a fork… then comes the fun part.

Dig in with your (clean!) hands and stir & knead until a smooth stiff dough forms. Roll into small (teaspoon-full size) balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Once you are done rolling all the dough, place the sheet in the fridge to chill and set for a few hours, until very firm.

In a small, deep bowl… microwave the chocolate chips and oil together in 30 second intervals – stirring well between each time – until smooth.

Using a fork, dip each ball into the chocolate, tap off the excess and set it back on the parchment; repeat. Again, once the pan is finished, place it back in the fridge to set completely for a few hours!

If you have excess chocolate, reheat it in the microwave for a few seconds and then scrape it into a ziploc bag. Cut off a tiny bit of the corner of the bag and drizzle the chocolate over the partially cooled chocolate balls.

*Alternately – and much more time-efficiently, especially great if you have littles running around!:

Instead of dipping the balls, place all of the melted chocolate in a ziploc bag and drizzle generously over the peanut butter balls. A little less chocolate to peanut butter ratio, but still great and much quicker & cleaner… and in my opinion cuter!!

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Whipped Oysters

December 21st, 2011 · 2 Comments

Long before I ever tried oysters on the half shell or oyster shooters or fried oysters, there were whipped oysters. I don’t think I knew what a real oyster was when I was a kid, but I knew we made this candy every year. I have no idea why these treats were called oysters. They don’t resemble an oyster. I can’t find out much about whipped oysters online and found only one recipe that was similar to our family recipe, but it seems like this was an ultra-local northeastern Wisconsin specialty. Not that I grew up in that part of Wisconsin. Go figure!

This is a recipe card I made while I was a teenager that shows the recipe that my family uses. Hey, whip some cream, dump in some melted chocolate, roll in nuts! Easy! Well, it is pretty easy, but I took some photos and added some notes below.

I melted a pound of chocolate in the double boiler. I used a mix of semi-sweet chocolate and some chocolate almond bark I had. I thought I remembered using almond bark as a kid. I didn’t even know that wasn’t really even chocolate back then. Just like I didn’t know these weren’t really oysters!

I kind of wish I’d used all semi-sweet or combined it with another higher-end chocolate. I mean, almond bark is cheap for a reason, right? Also, these came out really sweet. I would have liked to use a darker chocolate to cut that down a bit.

While the chocolate was cooling I whipped the cream until it was stiff.

After the cream is stiff and the chocolate has cooled a little bit, fold the chocolate into the whipped cream. This is a little tricky. I was trying to combine these, but didn’t want to break the whipped cream down. Later on I found a ribbon of pure chocolate in my mix, so I guess I didn’t do so great of a job. Not sure if I should have left the cream bowl on the mixer and pured the chocolate in while it was beating, or what the best method is. Maybe the whipped cream won’t break down anyway. Not sure.

After you mix the chocolate and whipped cream together, put it in the fridge. The recipe I saw online made it seem like this mixture is finicky and said to refrigerate it for 5-30 minutes until it has a “chiffon texture.” It even recommended checking on it every 5 minutes. My recipe said to refrigerate overnight. I probably refrigerated for 24 hours, just because I didn’t have a chance to get to it before then.

Take the chocolate mixture out of the refrigerator. You need to roll it into balls. We used to just use a teaspoon to do this, and that would work fine, but I decided to use my small cookie scoop to make uniformly sized balls. So I first scooped out all of the chocolate and then rolled them between my hands to make them more ball-like. If you need to, refrigerate the scoops before rolling them. These have a tendency to melt easily and stick to your hands. Make your balls small. They’re rich. Two bites is plenty big (or one big bite!). Just as a note, I made 50 oysters from this batch.

After you have your balls made, roll them in chopped nuts. I used roasted and salted almonds because I thought that the crunchiness and saltiness would be a good contrast to the sweet and smooth oysters. I was right!

After you roll the balls in the nuts, return them to the trays and refrigerate. After these are set, put them in storage containers, with clean waxed paper between layers. You need to store these in the fridge. They’ll stay good for a long time, like a week or two, but the nuts are the crunchiest if they’re served within a few days.

Cross section of an oyster. Overall, these are pretty easy to make and very tasty! Try your hand at this Wisconsin specialty!

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White Chocolate Covered Pretzels

December 20th, 2011 · No Comments

White chocolate covered pretzels are almost as easy to make as chocolate covered peanuts and I’ve probably been making them almost as long. For sure, since I was very young. I didn’t like them as much as the chocolate and peanuts, though, so I never got as excited about them. I do remember my mom making them every year for my uncle because they were his favorites.

All you do for this is melt some white chocolate (I used almond bark) and dip pretzels into it. I usually put a few pretzels in the bowl at a time and then fish each out with a fork. I don’t like a thick coating of chocolate, so I usually hang the pretzel off the for for a few seconds to let most of the chocolate shake off. Lay the wet pretzels on wax paper to dry. That’s it. A perfect sweet/savory candy.

Now, this year I decided to try something new. I saw some mint chips at the supermarket and bought them. I melted down a small amount of chips, put them in a ziploc and cut the tip. Then I drizzled the mint over the white pretzels when they were dried. I did the same with some milk chocolate, too. And then some of the pretzels I left plain. I think they look pretty when they’re all mixed together.

Other variations you could try are using pretzel rods, using milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate, or only dipping half of a pretzel in the chocolate. Also while the pretzels are still wet, you can sprinkle them with nuts, smashed candy canes, toffee bits or some kind of jimmie. I imagine you can make these for any season, depending what colors of sprinkles you use.

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Chocolate Covered Peanuts

December 19th, 2011 · No Comments

This is one of the easiest, most basic “Christmas candy” recipes that exists. I’ve been making this since I was a kid, probably for more than 25 years! I haven’t made it lately, though and decided to revisit an old favorite.

All you do is melt some chocolate in a double boiler, or even easier, at 20-30 second intervals in the microwave. Then dump some salted peanuts in the chocolate. Stir to coat that peanuts. Then drop the peanuts onto waxed paper to dry. I like to make clumps of 3-7 peanuts. They’ll be 1-2 bite pieces. Not too big, not too small. I also like the peanuts to be coated, but not excessively. I don’t like to bite into a piece of candy and get mostly chocolate, in other words. I use a fork to scoop the peanuts out of the chocolate and to make sure not too much chocolate comes out, but you can use a spoon, if you wish. I think this is how we did it when we were little kids!

This is a very simple “recipe,” but always a crowd pleaser! Who can resist chocolate + peanuts? Also, I remember as a kid some people would make something like this but with raisins. EVIL! No bueno.

One last note, use good quality chocolate for this recipe. Since there are only two ingedients, there’s no masking cheapo chocolate. I melted down a mix of Ghirardelli semi-sweet and bittersweet chips.

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You Better Not Cry by Augusten Burroughs

December 17th, 2011 · No Comments


finished 12.16.11

Somewhere in the last year or two I came across a free audio giveaway that was one chapter of this book and always wanted to read it, from then on. The book turned out to be a quick holiday read. I enjoyed it, but don’t expect uplifting, heartwarming Christmas stories here. Mostly, dark and screwed up stories… still, told in an honest and funny way. I enjoyed the second to last story the most, which is more about a relationship than the holiday.

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