Snicker French Macarons

I made these quite awhile ago and never posted them.  The macarons turned out great, they are quite finicky to make. They take patience and a stand mixer, there would be no way that I could hold on to a normal electric mixer.

These snickers macarons include a chocolate macaron shell, peanut butter and marshmallow nougat, chocolate ganache and caramel or dolce de leche sauce.  These macarons are decadent, you can only have one, maybe two at a time. I'm going to see if I can find the recipe, until then check out the photos, they'll make you drool!

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

So I ran out of blogging material and it's been awhile since my last blog so I thought I'd make some cupcakes.  Of course it's 35 degrees outside and ridiculously humid outside but my curly hair can take it. I also got these cute Peanuts cupcake liners that I just had to use.

I made a vanilla or butter cake, cupcake and filled it with strawberry jam topped with peanut butter frosting AND strawberry frosting but unfortunately by the time I came around to making the strawberry one my butter was way too soft and I ended up with a really runny frosting.  I didn't have enough time to firm it up so it looks really funny in the pictures.

This recipe is now my new stand-by cupcake recipe, it looks kinda funny after it's made if you don't get the butter really soft but it still tastes great!

Yellow Butter Cupcakes (makes 18)

2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream (full fat)
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda, baking powder and salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter

Mix all of the dry ingredients in a bowl (this will be your main bowl), in another bowl mix eggs, vanilla and 3 Tbsp. of the sour cream.  Add the butter and sour cream to the dry ingredients, mix in.  Slowly add the egg mixture, blend for a couple of seconds and you are ready to put the batter into the cupcake tin. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.  Cool in tins for 10 mins.

Peanut Butter Frosting

1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix all together until you get a desired consistency.

Jam Frosting

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup jam
2 cups powdered sugar
1 T. milk (if needed)

Mix all together until you get a desired consistency.

Assemble all together and om nom nom!

Enjoy!

Peanut Butter, Chocolate chip, Peanut Butter Chip and Reece's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Cookieeeeees, I love cookies especially when they are gooey inside.  These cookies are the holy grail of peanut butter and chocolate.  They have everything a peanut butter lover needs to satisfy that need.  

Right now Reece's has a limited edition peanut butter cup bar out that is double the weight of the regular three cups.  I have grown to love this bar as I was hard as a die hard fan to wrap my head around not eating the chocolate cups.

I found this recipe from allrecipes.com and made a couple of adjustments to suit my needs.  By the way this recipe makes about three dozen cookies; I made two dozen then froze the rest of the batter.

Recipe:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup peanut butter chips
• 6 chocolate covered peanut butter cups or two bars, cut into chunks

Cream the butter and sugars together.  Add eggs one at a time and add the vanilla. Combine the flour and baking soda and add to the butter mixture.  Add the chips and chunks to the mixture and incorporate with a spatula.

Bake at 350 for around eight minutes, the cookies will look underdone but will crisp up out of the oven.  Keep on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before moving them to the cooling racks.

We ate them too fast for me to take pictures of the final product but here are some while I was making them.  Try them for yourself, they are worth every ounce of butter.  

All of the mix-ins

dough...mmm!

Healthy Low Fat Granola

My boyfriend and I just got back from an excellent kiteboarding trip to Oliphant, Ontario.  The geography there is excellent for kiteboarding and we were lucky to have sunny skies everyday.  I decided to make some healthy granola to take on the trip to keep us going all day long.

I made some changes to the original recipe that I used.  The granola wasn’t moist enough so the granola bars turned into a bag of loose granola.  Here is the modified recipe.

2 cups quick oats

1/2 c. wheat germ

1/4 c. sesame seeds

3/4 c. unsalted sunflower seeds 

1/2 c. flaxseeds

1 c. honey

3/4 c. natural peanut butter

splash of vanilla extract

1/2 c. dried cranberries

1/4 c. raisins

1/4 c. dried blueberries (you can omit this and use any other dried fruit, these blueberries are quiet expensive) 

1/2 c. almonds

Heat peanut butter, honey and vanilla in a pot on the stove until it is fully melted.  Roast the wheat germ, oats, and all seeds in a frying pan for about 10 mins until toasted (don’t burn).  Line a baking pan with wax paper.  Toss the toasted mixture with the wet mixture in a bowl and spread in the baking pan, press down firmly into the pan.  Let sit for about 2 hours.  If the mixture doesn’t hold put it into a ziplock bag and you have granola rather than granola bars.

I mixed some of mine with vanilla yogurt and it was awesome.  It alone is awesome too!

Photo tutorial - How to make Peanut Butter Ice Cream

So last week I got an ice cream maker (talked about in my previous post) and a couple of ice cream recipe books.  Out of the three I got (Weinstein, Lebovitz and Cohen & Greenfield) my favourite is the one by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (it could be because I’m obsessed with Ben & Jerry’s).  Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and Dessert Book has tons of flavour possibilities, I decided to combine a couple to make Peanut Butter and Brownie Ice Cream.  This ice cream is absolutely delicious!  The texture is perfect like any other premium ice cream you get from the store.

Below is a picture tutorial on how to make this wonderful tasting ice cream.  The recipe is at the bottom.

Peanut Butter and Brownie Ice Cream

First you need to start by making your favourite brownie recipe.  Once the brownies have cooled, cut it into chunks and put them into the freezer.

Secondly choose your favourite ice cream base. Mine is:

2 eggs

2 cups, whipping cream

1 cup, homogenized milk 

3/4 cup, sugar

Follow steps in the picture tutorial.

You will need between 1/3 - 1/2 cup of peanut butter, smooth 

or chunky.  

Once you have incorporated the eggs, sugar, milk and cream, you 

need to take some of the mixture and mix it with the peanut butter.  

Once that is smooth add it back into the main mixture.  

Pour the mixture into the ice cream maker and follow the directions

provided with your machine.

With two minutes left add the brownies.  You might have to stop the machine and fold the brownies in by hand.  

Put the mixture into an airtight container and put into the freezer until it reaches the consistency you desire.

Scoop and Enjoy!