peanut butter pretzel bites*

Boy oh boy, do I have a long list of recipes that I need to share with you all! We had our parent conferences this week and we got pretty creative making different snacking items, if I do say so myself! To give you an idea of what you have to look forward to, here is what I can think of off the top of my head.

*these amazing peanut butter pretzel bites - delish
*red velvet brownies
*orange creamsicle fruit dip
*veggie cups
*s'mores on a STICK
*caprese kabobs
*pumpkin pie dip

And more! We best start from the top. Although my picture isn't that fabulous and doesn't even begin to give these little guys the justice they deserve, they are pretty darn amazing! I had compliment after compliment, and everyone was dying to know the recipe! I did tweak the recipe slightly. The original recipe called for brown sugar, and I replaced it with graham cracker crumbs. I wanted them to have more of a Reese' peanut butter cup consistency. I think it was a good choice!

So, without further ado, I am pleased to announce the secret ingredients to the calorie-free and guilt-free (of course) peanut butter pretzel bites!

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites
adapted from Two Tiny Kitchens

chocolate cupcake w/ peanut butter frosting and nutella ganache*

Say that fast 10 times! These cupcakes are nothing short of AMAZING. They are melt in your mouth peanut butter chocolate gooey goodness! We made these for parent conference this last weekend and they were a hit. I had a slight meltdown because the frosting started falling off some of the cupcakes, but with some quick thinking I stuck them in the freezer and they were good as new.

I was worried the recipe for the frosting didn't make enough, so I added some whipped topping to the frosting and it still tasted so yummy! The frosting alone I could literally eat for a week straight. This is my new favorite frosting recipe. I don't know what it is, but add flour and granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar to your frosting and you will have the lightest, fluffiest, most delicious frosting which strongly resembles whipped cream. There is a frosting that we have made before that said that after you cook your flour and milk to put it through a sifter. This recipe did not say to do that and it turned out just as good, maybe even better, than the sifted recipe. So you can skip that annoying step and get just as good results! Sign me up!

Also, the nutella ganache didn't thicken up like I thought it would, so I added some chocolate chips and covered it for 5 minutes while the nutella and cream was still hot, then uncovered and stirred. That thickened it up nicely so that I could coat my cupcakes more easily and not so runny and messy. If yours thickens up like a normal ganache, then don't fret about the chocolate chips.

Chocolate Cupcake w/ Peanut Butter Frosting and Nutella Ganache
from Made Famous By

Chocolate Cupcakes
**This recipe will also make an amazing cake**

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with paper liners or spray with non-stick cooking spray.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat together the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, eggs, vanilla and water. Beat for about two minutes on medium speed until well combined.

3. Using a large cookie scoop, distribute the batter between 24 muffin wells.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 18-22 minutes or until the tops of the cakes spring back when lightly touched. . Allow cupcakes to cool inside muffin tins for about 10 minutes.

5. Remove cupcakes from muffin tins and allow to fully cool on a wire rack. Once cupcakes are cool, take a little of the middle out to prepare them for the stuffing. 

Assemble them like this: Fill them with the peanut butter frosting with Reeses, put a layer of Nutella Ganache on the top of the cupcake (stay away from the edges), frost the cupcakes with the peanut butter frosting, drizzle with nutella ganache, then cut a reeses in half (I did fourths) to add it to the top.

Peanut Butter Frosting
*Adapted from the best frosting EVER!*

5 Tablespoons Flour
1 cup Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 cup Butter
1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

1/4 C Peanut Butter

6 Reeses Peanut Butter cups (chopped)

Directions

In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If I’m in a hurry, I place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

** Reserve a cup of the frosting when you are done making it and add the chopped up Reese's Peanut Butter cups to it. Use this mixture to put in the hole you made in the cupcakes then frost the cup cakes with the regular frosting.

Nutella Ganache

2 C Nutella
2 C Heavy Cream

Put the Nutella and heavy cream in a bowl and heat it in the microwave for 1 minute. Take it out and stir it. If it is not melted enough heat it for another minute.

-alyssa*

peanut butter munchies*

These cookies are so delicious! They are just like a Reese's, only in cookie form. Reese's are Landon's favorite candy, so I will need to make these for him sometime soon! He has been suffering from the flu as of late (which by the way he has passed on to me - thanks honey), so I should make these when he is eating again :). These were made for a baby shower for one of my staff whom was working while I made them, so I couldn't do anything that was too obvious since her baby shower was a surprise! I would highly recommend eating them straight out of the oven while they are still warm. They are melt in your mouth amazingness! But they are good cooled down, too.

Peanut Butter Munchies
from Better Homes and Gardens

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. In a medium mixing bowl stir together flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda; set aside.

2. In a large mixing bowl beat together butter, the 1/2 cup granulated sugar, brown sugar, and the 1/4 cup peanut butter with an electric mixer until combined. Add egg, milk, and vanilla; beat well. 

 

Beat in as much of the dry ingredients as you can with mixer. Stir in remaining dry ingredients by hand with a wooden spoon.

Form chocolate dough into 32 balls about 1-1/4 inches in diameter. Set aside.

3. For peanut butter filling, in a medium mixing bowl combine powdered sugar and the remaining 1/2 cup peanut butter until smooth. 

At first it will look like this. Keep beating until it ends up looking like this:

Shape mixture into 32 (3/4-inch) balls.

4. On a work surface, slightly flatten a chocolate dough ball and top with a peanut butter ball. 

 

Shape the chocolate dough over the peanut butter filling, completely covering the filling. Roll dough into a ball. 

Repeat with the remaining chocolate dough and peanut butter filling balls.

5. Place balls 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Lightly flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in the 2 tablespoons granulated sugar.

6. Bake cookies in preheated oven for 8 minutes or until they're just set and surface is slightly cracked. Let cookies stand for 1 minute. Transfer cookies to wire racks; cool. Makes 32 cookies.

YUMMY! These things are SO good! I could literally eat the whole batch right out of the oven! I can't wait to make these again when we get feeling better in the Cundy household :)

-alyssa*

no bake reese's peanut butter bars*

Hopefully everyone has had the Reese's Peanut Butter Bars you can make that are in the baking aisle at the grocery store?

 
These are my husband's FAVORITE! I never had them until last year, and they are pretty tasty. But I came across this recipe and wanted to try it and see if it tasted anything like the one in the box. I actually had peanut butter bars on our menus at the school, but we have been using the same recipe since the beginning of time. It's way good though, and I'm sure at one point it will get on the blog :). However, I decided to switch it up and try this new found recipe.

I think the graham cracker crumbs are what make these bars really taste like a Reese's (I forgot to mention that these REALLY do taste like a Reese's!!!). They are way easy to make and take almost no time!

No Bake Reese's Peanut Butter Bars
from Our Best Bites

1 1/2 C graham cracker crumbs
1 lb (3 1/2 C) powdered sugar
1 1/2 C creamy peanut butter
1 C (2 sticks) real butter, melted
1 12oz bag chocolate chips (milk, semi-sweet, or dark, you pick!)
2 tsp shortening

In a large mixing bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar and peanut butter and butter and beat until combined.  Press into a parchment (or waxed paper or foil) lined 9x13 pan.

Place chocolate chips and shortening in a microwave safe bowl and heat in 30 second intervals, stirring after each one, until melted and smooth (I actually did them in a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water - microwaves freak me out).  Pour chocolate over peanut butter mixture and spread out evenly.

Place pan in the fridge just until chocolate is set and then cut into bars.

Tip:  If the bars chill until the chocolate is too hard to easily cut, use a sharp knife and score the cuts first, then gently cut through.  Can be stored in the fridge or at room temp.  They will stay firmer if stored in the fridge.

*Tip:  Instead of adding shortening to the chocolate topping, add a scoop of peanut butter.  That will prevent the top from getting solid and it will taste yummy!

I used the peanut butter with the chocolate for the topping and it was so yummy! Plus, I like the idea of having peanut butter in it rather than the shortening. I would actually put butter with the chocolate before I would put shortening. Anyway, these truly taste like a Reese's and are definitely very close to the Reese's bar mix you can buy at the store. They are so easy to make that they wouldn't take much more time, either.

-alyssa*

peanut butter crispy bars*

Can I just tell you how much I LOVE my husband!! Today he showed up to my work after he got out of school and surprised me with a Frosty from Wendy's (hey, biggest loser doesn't start til next week). Then I got home from work and he had bought me some of that Laughing Cow cheese spread that I have wanted to try for the longest time (still haven't tried it but I'll let you know how it goes). And finally, he had this beautiful dinner ready and on the table when I walked through the door!

Yes, MY husband made this amazingness! BBQ chicken - crispy on the edges just how I like it - olives, kidney beans, boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, romaine, croutons (my favorite food), and topped with some of our delicious homemade buttermilk ranch!! I am one lucky woman!!

Today was the last day of the open house at work, which is bittersweet. I have been very short-handed at work lately and it's been pretty crazy, but I have LOVED that I could make time to be able to cook recipes that I have found and wanted to try. I am overly ambitious sometimes and decide to go a little over the top, but all of the extra work has been worth it. I think it turned out really well even though it's been crazy trying to squeeze it all in.

Today we made some peanut butter crispy bars. Oh my!!! SO GOOD! They are melt in your mouth chocolatey peanut buttery crunchy AHHH! Really, I went over to the open house just so that I could eat one! We barely had enough of everything that a lot of the stuff we sent over there we couldn't even try or we only had a teeny tiny taste. These are worth the walk across campus I tell ya!

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars
from Tracey's Culinary Adventures

Crust
1 3/4 cups crisped rice cereal
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer
5 ounces milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup creamy peanut butter

Chocolate Icing
3 ounces dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon light corn syrup
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

To make the crust: Lightly spray a paper towel with nonstick cooking spray and use it to rub the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan. (I lined my pan with aluminum foil (which I sprayed with the cooking spray) so the bars could simply be lifted out once they set.)

Put the cereal in a large bowl and set aside. Put 1/4 cup water into a saucepan. Add the sugar and corn syrup to the pan and use a small wooden spoon to stir the mixture just until combined. Cook over medium-high heat and bring to a boil; cook until the mixture reaches 235 F on a candy thermometer.

Remove from the heat, stir in the butter and pour the mixture over the cereal. Working quickly, stir until the cereal is thoroughly coated, then pour into the prepared pan. Using your hands or a rubber spatula, press the cereal mixture into the bottom of the pan only. Let cool to room temperature while you make the next layer.

To make the milk chocolate-peanut butter layer: In a large nonreactive metal bowl stir together the chocolate and peanut butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook until the mixture is smooth, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for about 30 seconds to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the cooled crust. Put the pan in the refrigerator for 1 hour, or until the top layer hardens.

To make the chocolate icing: In a large nonreactive metal bowl, combine the chocolate, corn syrup and butter. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook until the mixture is completely smooth, stirring occasionally with a rubber spatula. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for about 30 seconds to cool slightly. Pour the mixture over the cooled milk chocolate-peanut butter layer and spread into an even layer. I recommend simply tilting the pan to spread the chocolate around as opposed to using a rubber spatula which is more likely to disturb the layer below. Put the pan in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until the topping hardens.
Cut into 16 (or 9) squares and serve. The bars can be stored tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Looking at the recipe it might seem like a lot and kind of intimidating, but it's really not hard! It does take some time waiting for it to refrigerate and set up, but it is well worth the wait I promise! I am going to be making these again soon!

-alyssa*