Chocolate Peanut Butter Squares

The combination chocolate and peanut butter is not a new concept. Since the mid-1920s, people have been enjoying the indulgent (but oh so delicious) Reese's peanut butter cups.

These were a creation inspired the flavours of the famous peanut butter cups -- my first baked good recipe made up entirely by myself. It must be said, that I was partly motivated by the sizeable bag of biscuits that my brother had brought home from work. He is a stock boy at a bulk food store, and since the majority of the cookies were broken, his manager was planning on throwing them away. I think he had me in mind when he salvaged the bag of cookies.

So, equipped with a bag of mostly broken biscuits and a craving for chocolate and peanut butter, I came up with these: Krissy's Chocolate and Peanut Butter Squares.

The bars themselves are quite simple. They have a no-bake crust made of crushed cookies, cocoa, sugar, and butter, which is slathered with a peanut butter icing. To top it off, melted chocolate is drizzled on top for a nice crisscrossed (or should I say starcrossed) effect.

I found that the peanut butter icing was fluffier than I expected it to be, perhaps as a result of beating it with my electric mixer. If I make these again, I might try reserving some cookie crumbs and mixing them in with the peanut butter icing to see how that effects the texture.


Anyways, enjoy my first original recipe!
Krissy's Chocolate and Peanut Butter Squares

Ingredients

2 cup cookie crumbs
2 T cocoa powder
3 T sugar
½ cup melted butter

1 ½ cup peanut butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 t vanilla

2 oz chocolate, melted

Line a 8" square baking pan with aluminum foil. Using a food processor, add the cookie pieces and blitz them until they are only crumbs. In a midsized bowl, combine cookie crumbs, cocoa, and sugar and stir until ingredients are evenly mixed. Add melted butter and stir until well combined and all of the crumbs are moistened.

Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Place in the fridge until needed.

In another bowl, beat together peanut butter, icing sugar and vanilla. Spread on top of crumb base.

Melt chocolate in microwave, using 20 second intervals. At the end of each interval, take the bowl out and give the chocolate a good mix. When the chocolate is melted, drizzle it over the top of the peanut butter icing.

Place chocolate peanut butter squares in fridge for at least 30 minutes or until you are ready to enjoy your chocolate and peanut buttery treat!

Makes 16 servings

Oh, Sugar (cookies)!

So, I’ve officially started my summer job! That’s exciting. ☺ Yesterday was full of safety videos, but today was definitely interesting. I’m learning how to do all sorts of testing for bacteria and other infectious diseases from samples from patients that are sent into the lab. Tomorrow, I’ll get to try one myself! (Under the watchful eye of my supervisor of course. :) )

But don’t worry, these weren’t made anywhere close to the lab. In fact, I made them on Monday for a BBQ that I was going to and also to practice my piping again. The recipe is originally from The Repressed Pasty Chef, a great blog that you should definitely check out. I made a few changes: I forgot to add the salt to the cookies (oops!), but I used salted butter, so they still taste all right. I also just used butter and not butter and shortening in the icing. They turned out great, and they’re definitely a crowd pleaser. You can be as fun and creative as you like with the icing, especially if you’ve got a piping bag. Some I topped with designs, others with zigzagging icing trails and sprinkles, while some were cut in two and slathered with icing.

This recipe makes a lot of cookies, so I’m going to take them in to work tomorrow. I’ll let you know how they’re enjoyed!

PS. Sorry for the lighting, I iced these at night and just couldn't find a bright enough room to get a decent picture. Trust me, they taste lovely though.

Sugar Cookie Bars
Adapted from The Repressed Pastry Chef

1 cup butter; room temp.
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
5 cups flour
1 tsp salt (I forgot this, but used salted butter. Turned out fine.)
1/2 tsp soda

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each egg. Add vanilla & mix well. In a separate bowl combine flour, salt & soda & stir with a whisk to combine. Add to wet mixture and mix just until combined. Spread on a greased baking sheet (use a 13 x 18 pan). Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 min, until light golden brown or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely and frost.

Frosting
1 cup butter; room temp
1 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
4 cups powdered sugar
5 Tbsp milk
food colouring (if desired)

For frosting combine butter and shortening until smooth and creamy. Add vanilla and salt. Add powdered sugar in 1-2 cup increments until combined, then add milk & mix until smooth and spreading consistency. Cut up your cookies and ice as desired. Eg with piping bag or spread on top.



Cheers and enjoy!

Brownies!

So, these are truly the brownies that have used up all of my spare ingredients. I have no more sugar, no more cocoa powder, no more eggs, and only a little bit of flower left. That being said, I still have at least half a bottle of vegetable oil kicking about. I’m afraid it will be consigned to the gathering heap of abandoned food on the counter of the annexe kitchen.

As well as baking these to use up the last of my ingredients, a large group of my friends also have their last exam tomorrow. I plan on greeting them outside with goodies and a huge hug. The poor guys have been studying like mad for their biology of organisms exam, whilst I’ve been free since last Wednesday.

I got the original recipe from Baking Bites, the food blog that got me interested in food blogging. I have to say, that although these brownies are undoubtedly good, I’m not sure if they’re my favourite. Now, please let me explain myself.

There is nothing wrong with this recipe, at all. But I made some changes because of the equipment and ingredients I had on hand. So perhaps this is what has made the difference. First of all, the recipe called for butter. Like I said, I had a large amount of vegetable oil to use up, so I decided to opt out of buying butter and just use the oil. Most websites said that this was a perfectly legit substitution.

Secondly, I did not put as much cocoa powder in as the original recipe suggested. It said to add a 1/3 cup and I probably had just over a ¼ cup left. This is possibly why the brownies are “good” but not “omg, I could eat a whole pan” good. I love the rich, rich taste of cocoa and dark chocolate. These brownies are to my dream brownies as milk chocolate is to dark chocolate. Don’t get me wrong; I love milk chocolate. But I was hoping – perhaps a bit inanely considering I didn’t have that much cocoa powder – for a darker taste.

Thirdly, the recipe called for crushed up mint Oreos. Sadly, as a student in Scotland, mint Oreos are a) hard to find and b) out of my pathetically cheap budget. Instead, I picked up some bourbon biscuits, which consist of a dollop of chocolate icing sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits. Perhaps the mint flavour is what is missing?

Lastly, I had a 9”x13” pan at the beginning of the year. Heck, I can remember using it in March. But I had a look in my bag of baking/cooking supplies and lo and behold, it has evaporated. So, I had two options: not make the brownies (not really an option at all), or use my two 8” cake tins. Obviously, I opted for the cake tins. The recipe indicated that the brownies should be done after 35 minutes. Mine were in there for 50 minutes and the insides are still quite fudgy. Granted, the surface area of the two cake tins is about square inches smaller than that of the 9”x13” pan.

So, all in all, I’d say these are a fudgy, chocolatey brownie for those with a serious sweet tooth. The edges are crispy, whilst the centre is like eating fudge – something that made them a bit tricky to cut cleanly. Still, I’ll see how they’re received tomorrow and give them another taste to see how they have fared the day after.



Edit: I have to say, they are good the next day. The centres have solidified a wee bit, so that they’re at the nice stage of fudgy and not the undercooked stage. They were much enjoyed by all of my much-relieved-to-be-done-first-year-uni friends. Still, I wish there was a bit more of a cocoa-y “oomph” – like the centre of a dark chocolate truffle (divine!).

Bourbon Cream Biscuit Brownies

Adapted from Baking Bites

Peppermint Cookies n’ Cream Brownies
1 cup vegetable oil
6 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups roughly chopped Bournon cream biscuits (approx 18)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two 8" cake tins with baking paper.
In a medium-large saucepan over low heat, melt together oil and chocolate, stirring occasionally. Whisk in sugar, salt and vanilla, then turn off heat. Whisk in eggs one at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Stir in flour and cocoa powder until mixture is uniform. Stir in Bourbon cream biscuits and pour batter into prepared pan. Crush 3-4 additional cookies finely and sprinkle on top of batter, if desired.
Bake for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs, but not coated with batter.
Cool brownies in pan for about 20 minutes, then lift brownies in the foil out of the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Makes 36 brownies.

So, what do you think? Should brownies be sweet and fudgy, like the best bits of a chocolate bar? Or like the inside of a dark chocolate truffle. Mmmm. I think you know my vote already. ;)

Revision and sweets!

Do you believe in pathetic fallacy? That is to say, that if the weather outside is frightening, then something frightening must be going on inside? Shakespeare...Twas a dark and stormy night and all that jazz. I only say this because I really hope it's not true! These past two days it has bucketed with rain, and I just had my biology exam this afternoon. I definitely passed, but I'll guess I'll get back to you in a few weeks when the results are out. And we'll see if really the weather mimics the state of the world.

But now, back to food. Or rather, on to food. :) As a study break on Thursday, I made some tiffin. Tiffin is a Scottish treat that is made when you make a syrup out of butter sugar, golden syrup, and cocoa powder and mix it with crushed digestive biscuits and raisins. To top that heavenly mixture off, you pour melted chocolate over it all. Divine.

Previously I'd only had tiffin before from bakeries or from hall dinner, but it didn't seem to tricky at all to make. And it was quick and no bake. A perfect treat to make for those chocolate, sugar cravings that you get from all that studying!

Anyways, I took the last of them with me to my exam today and shared the love (and chocolate) out among my friends after we got out of our exam. I must say, tiffin could easily become one of my favourite no bake bar treats!

The recipe is one that I adapted from here. Tiffin is not really a scientific treat and I think you can be fairly free with your ingredient amounts and mix them up. I was thinking that these could be amazing with white chocolate and dried cranberries! Mmmmm. That's one that will have to get made at some point.

Enjoy!