Peanut Butter Cup Pie

March is birthday month in my family.  My sister Christy, then Elijah, then my sister-in-law Candice, then my husband Dan, then my niece Cheyanne, and then my niece Zahria.  If one does the math, it seems my family is particularly loving in June.  Which makes sense, because we're a family of educators.  School is out in June.  We finally relax and have time to enjoy each other.  I guess we enjoy each other a lot.

Goodness, that was probably inappropriate.  But see, I made this peanut butter cup pie for my love, who turned 42 today.  There was a lot of selfless taste testing that went into this one, because I needed to make sure it was just right.  And not poisoned.  Or something.

It's a fact that I get much more excited about my love's birthday than he does.  I forced him to look through my entire cake board on Pinterest.  Eh.  He could take them or leave them.  I then forced him to look through my entire cookies & bars board.  Yawn.  Then I remembered bars I had once made with a recipe from Michelle, the Brown-Eyed Baker.  Bingo.  With some modifications to change the bars to a pie, and to put the pie over-the-top, we're celebrating with a nontraditional cake.  Seriously, what could be better than chocolate and peanut butter?
 

 

The base of this pie has a really weird ingredient, but it totally replicates the slight grittiness of the inside of a peanut butter cup.  Graham cracker crumbs.  Weird, huh?

In the inspiration recipe this base is topped with melted chocolate, but I had to do some fancy-ing up to that.  Instead I went with a ganache, but used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet chocolate.  My kids turn up their noses at bittersweet chocolate.  We have unrefined taste around here, I guess.

 
Be certain to test out the chocolate chips.  The package might say 'semi-sweet' but what if that was a misprint?  Taste some just to be certain. Then add a cup of hot hot heavy cream and let it sit about five minutes.

 I love this part...

Mmmmmm.  Ganache.  Better try it, though, to be sure.  I spread a little bit of this over the top of the peanut butter base and popped it into the freezer for a few minutes while I chopped up the peanut butter cups.

I'd advise that you test out a few of the chopped pieces, just to make sure the bag of candy was fresh and everything.  It's all about quality ingredients, and all that.

And then, more ganache.  How could this be anything but good?

Let it sit in the refrigerator for a while, until the ganache layers harden.  While you wait, prewash all of your dishes with your tongue before loading up your dishwasher.  Really, that's easier on your dishwasher.  And then......

 
Oh yeah.  That's what I'm talking about.  

 So good, it kind of felt like a birthday present to everyone.  Happy birthday to my love.  He was worth every moment I 'slaved' over this one. 

Peanut Butter Cup Pie
Modified from Peanut Butter Cup Bars by the Brown-Eyed Baker

1 c. butter
2.5 c powdered sugar
2 c. peanut butter
1.5 c graham cracker crumbs
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c. heavy cream
1 bag Reese's Peanut Butter Cup minis

Melt the butter, then beat with the powdered sugar, peanut butter and graham cracker crumbs.  Spray a large pie pan with nonstick cooking spray, then spread the peanut butter base in the pie pan.  

Pour the chocolate chips into a heat-resistant bowl.  Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan until it begins to boil.  Pour the heavy cream on top of the chocolate chips and allow it to rest for five minutes.  Then whisk the mixture until the ganache is smooth.

Pour just enough ganache onto the peanut butter base to spread thinly.  Refrigerate for 20 minutes or so.  While that cools, chop the peanut butter cups.  Spread the chopped peanut butter cups over the peanut butter base, then pour the remaining ganache on top.  Refrigerate for an hour or more.

Enjoy!

 

I Am Not Perfect (at cake pops)

Around this part of the country, the common response to "I'm not perfect" is "Only Jesus is perfect."  Since I'll never be anything close to Jesus, I know I should try to let go of the blame and self-recrimination I feel every time I try to use candy melts.  And fail.  

But I can't let it go.  

All these cake pop people on Pinterest, and the queen of cake pops, Bakerella herself, make it look so simple.  In fact, my inspiration for these cake pops came from a blog post that called them--and I quote--'easy to make.'  So easy her toddler helped her.

The cake pop that my child is pretending to eat?  It's supposed to be a Lego head.  Yeah.  I know.  It's bad.  It was all going great until I hit the candy melt stage, and then nose dive.  I'm terrified to melt it too long or it will seize up.  Been there, thrown that away.  There is some sweet spot between not hot enough (thick substance) and too hot (solid ruined substance) where the candy melts are supposed to be thin and runny.  You're supposed to be able to just dip the dang cake into the chocolate, gently tap off the excess, and have a glossy beautiful pop.  But no.  No.

So here is how I made not perfect Lego cake pops.

I bought a cake mix and frosting.  (GAH!)  Serious, they are going to be demolished by 8 year olds who won't care, and I just didn't have time to do scratch for a cake that was going to get crumbled up and mixed with frosting.  So there.  Anyway, I baked the cake, I crumbled it into pieces, I mixed it with the can of frosting.

That part went great.  I formed them into balls, and then rolled the balls into cylinders.

 

Check, check.  Still going great.  It hit me at this point that they looked like marshmallows, and that next time I should just try using marshmallows for this instead.  But anyway, still going fine.  I needed some type of candy on the top to make the little bump that would connect with the Lego hair or the Lego hat.  I used Bottlecaps, adhered with some glaze.

All going great, I popped them into the refrigerator for a half hour, then pulled them out.  I melted just a small amount of candy melts, twirled each stick in melted 'chocolate' and inserted the sticks carefully into the bottoms of the cake pops.

Still going great.  I put them in the freezer.  And then I melted the candy melts and mixed them with yellow glaze food coloring.

And then the horrors started.  I dipped one pop in.  I couldn't even twist it.  I worried the cake pop would come off the sucker stick if I attempted to tap it on the side to get rid of some of the stuff.  I got out a butter knife.  I should have just given up at this point.  To make it all work, I had to essentially frost every stupid cake pop with the candy melts, heating the stuff periodically when it got too hard.  Unfortunately it was next to impossible to make that little top piece look like what it was supposed to look like, and I couldn't get an even surface.

By this time I'd invested a good stretch of time on these.  I was getting really mad.  I took out the black icing, just like the blog post I read suggested, and the toothpick recommended, and I attempted to draw Lego faces.  

That's when I found my way out of this disaster.  These cake pops were supposed to be birthday treats for Eli on Thursday--he's turning eight, and he's the resident Lego maniac.  Eli begged to get to draw the faces.  If I can say Eli helped with these cake pops, then I don't have to be so embarrassed if he takes them to school and adults actually see them.

That's probably mean, right?  But this is the deal.  Here are two of Eli's creations:

He's so proud of them.  He's so excited about them.  He can't wait to take them to his friends.  He humbles me.  Only Jesus is perfect.  But my kids come dang close. 

      

No Bake Cookies

I'm missing my mom.  

She's a beautiful person.  She has an amazing heart, and she's kind and good.  She gave my sister and brother and I the kind of start in life that made us 'advantaged'--not monetarily, but in every way that counts.  She makes me feel smart, and strong, and successful.  We live too far apart, and this stretch from the holidays to May is always the time of year we go without seeing each other.

And this has......what to do with no bake cookies?  Well, of course, they remind me of her.  My mama's not a great lover of being stuck in the kitchen.  Growing up, she often made brownies from a box, and cookie sandwiches from saltines and chocolate frosting, and "cherry nummy" from canned cherry preserves and a yellow cake mix.  She went for fast and simple, because she was a working mama too.  When she had free time when we were younger, she often spent it outside in the garden.  She still does.  That's why no bake cookies fit in perfectly with her style.

In the 22 years since I left home, I've never made them.

I set out to rectify that today.  When I landed on this recipe, I knew I had a winner.  Really, when the first ingredients are butter

and sugar

and chocolate

and peanut butter

how could it be anything but good?  Seriously, with the protein (peanut butter) and whole grains (oatmeal), this is almost health food...

 

And it all comes together in a cinch.  

 

Now, if only my dad would  bring her here so I could enjoy them with her.  Sigh.  I really miss my dad....

No Bake Cookies

Recipe from FoodNetwork.com

2 c sugar

4 T cocoa

1 stick butter

1/2 c milk

1 c peanut butter

1 T vanilla

3 c oatmeal

 

In a saucepan, melt the butter, then whisk in the sugar, cocoa and milk.  Bring to a boil, and allow the mixture to boil for about a minute.  Remove from the heat, then whisk in the peanut butter and vanilla.  Stir in oatmeal, then drop by rounded tablespoon-fulls onto a piece of wax paper.  Allow them to cool, or put them in the fridge for a few minutes to help them set up.  Then enjoy.  Mmmmm.  Tastes just like being 12! 

 

Caramelitas

 

The truth is, I'm feeling a lot of pressure at work.  Self-induced pressure, but still--so much I can't control and so much riding on faith.  It freaks me out when I do everything within my power, but I can't guarantee a successful outcome.  

I'm pretty sure that's why I bake.  

I mean really, if it has butter and sugar, it's probably going to turn out good.  It's probably going to make people happy.  People will probably want it.  And throw in caramel and chocolate....how could I go wrong?  

I've had this bag of caramels sitting in my pantry since Christmas.  I think that's a record around here--caramels in the pantry for two months--but I had them kind of tucked away and out of site.  So out of site that even I had forgotten about them until they were uncovered after I grabbed out a bag of chocolate chips for the emergency pan of scotcheroos I had to throw together this week for the basketball concession stand.  But that's a story for another day.  Anyhow.  I had caramels.  And I had chocolate chips.  And I have this old recipe for oatmeal cookies from my sister-in-law Danelle.  An hour in the kitchen, and walla!  Caramelitas!  

Super simple to make.  Whip up the oatmeal cookie recipe, but spread about 1/2 to 2/3 of the dough in the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 pan.

Melt your caramels with heavy cream and whisk until smooth, then pour over the dough and sprinkle with a bag of chocolate chips.  Mmmmmmm, caramel and chocolate......

Blob the rest of the dough all over the top of that.  Yes, blob really is the technical term for this action.

Bake the whole thing for 25 to 30 minutes at 375.  Remove from your oven and allow the caramelitas to cool for as long as you can stand.  You may need to take some of the caramely crust off while you wait, to taste test.  To make sure you don't poison anyone or anything.  To make sure it turned out ok. 

Cut into squares and serve to your loved ones.  Revel in the complete lack of pressure about making amazing caramelitas.  Notice how successful you were.  Appreciate your kitchen prowess.  

Feel safer knowing that even though you can't control what other people choose to do, you can always control the caramelitas.  Thank goodness for that.

Caramelitas

For the cookie dough:
1 c. butter, at room temperature
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
2 c. old fashioned rolled oats
1 c. all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder

For the top:
1 bag of caramels
1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
1 bag of chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 375.  Beat butter and sugars until well creamed--about 5 minutes, or the time it will take you to peel the wrapper off all the caramels.  Add the eggs and vanilla, beating thoroughly after each.  Add the dry ingredients and beat until well combined.

Spread 1/2 to 2/3 of the dough on the bottom of a greased 9 x 13 baking pan.  Melt caramels with the whipping cream--I put them in the microwave for about 2 minutes.  Whisk until smooth, and pour over the top of the dough in the pan.  Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top.  Scoop rounded tablespoons of the remaining dough and place randomly on top of the chocolate chip and caramel layer, making sure there is about an even amount around the pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool.  Then enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie

Sometimes I wonder about the person who coined the phrase "easy as pie."  Maybe the person who had no qualms about using a premade pie crust, dumping a can of pie filling in it, then calling it good?  Sometime in the last few years I've gone from preferring to make my own everything, to having somewhat of an aversion to anything premade or processed by a manufacturer.  There will be no premade pie crusts in this house.

In the past, before the era of the KitchenAid mixer and the Cuisinart food processor, I avoided making pies because I can't stand the sticky, floury mess on the counter caused by rolling pie crust.  But then I did get the mixer and the food processor.

And then I had a stroke of genius.  Granted, I'm sure I'm not the only person who has thought of this, but still.  Instead of coating my countertop with flour, I cover it with some saran wrap.

Then I plop the dough onto the saran wrap and cover it with another sheet of saran wrap.

Then I roll.  It's genius.  No mess anywhere. 

From here it's a total cinch to get it into the pie plate.  I peel off that top layer of saran wrap and let the pastry fold in the center (not in so the pastry touches itself, but out so the wrap touches itself.  I lay the half on the pie plate, then unfold the dough, then peel off the other layer of wrap.  Like so:

Easy peasy, right?  No muss, no fuss.  And it tastes like you made a big flour-y mess all over your counters.  

I need to use up all of the pumpkin saved in my freezer from last fall before we start growing more pumpkin.  I really would have loved to make some kind of pumpkin and cheesecake layered pie to fill this lovely pie crust, but the child who loves pumpkin loathes cream cheese, and I swear he can taste it in anything.  So I just went with a pumpkin pie that has a light crumb crust on the top.

In the spirit of being as manufactured-processed-free as possible, I also used eggs from our hens.  The side benefit being that we have egg cartons full of these puppies taking up an entire shelf in my refrigerator, so using them up is always good.

 A few turns in my handy dandy Cuisinart...

......and walla!

 

Of course I forgot to take pictures of making the crumb topping, but I describe it in the recipe below.  If you go that route, you'll end up with pumpkin pie with a crumb crust.  Kinda like this one.

YUM.  In case you've been inspired to try this 'easy as pie (crust)' approach, here is the recipe.

Pumpkin Pie With Crumb Crust

Loosely adapted from Taste of Home recipes here and here.

Pie crust:

2 c all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2/3 c shortening

6 - 8 T ice water

In your Cuisinart (or whatever), combine the flour and salt.  Add the shortening, and pulse until the mixture is crumbly.  Add in the water and combine until a ball of dough forms.  Roll out however you like, but I'd recommend the saran wrap approach!

Pumpkin filling:

2 cups pumpkin 

2 eggs

3/4 cup brown sugar

12 oz evaporated milk

1 T flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp salt

Wipe down your Cuisinart bowl (or get a fresh bowl, or use your food processor, or whatever!).  Combine all ingredients and blend until smooth.  Pour into the prepared uncooked pie crust.

Crumb topping:

1/3 cup old-fashioned oats

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

2 T cold butter

1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Wipe down your Cuisinart bowl (or whatever!).  Add all crumb topping ingredients and pulse until the butter is well incorporated.  This tends to pulverise the walnuts, so if you'd prefer the walnuts be more chunky, add them after you've incorporated the butter.  Sprinkle over the top of the pumpkin filling.  Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature of your oven to 350 and bake for another 50 to 60 minutes until the pie is set.  Mine came out of the oven in a dome shape, but settles down nicely within a few minutes as it cools.  Though this is good warm with whipped topping, I prefer it after it refrigerates for a while and is cold.  In fact, I think it's best after it sits in the refrigerator for a day.  However long you can stand to wait before digging in, I guess!  Enjoy!