Lazy Sundays are the best kind of Sundays in my opinion. Wake up late and just soak in the precious few rays of sunlight before playing around in the kitchen ^^! Pupu wanted to come over and make something together so I spent a while browsing and deciding on what to make and as usual I settled for a dessert item. This time the recipe is thanks to Anna at Cookie Madness. I ended choosing yet another recipe with both chocolate and PB hee hee I guess I am a sucker for the combination of silky smooth chocolate and crunchy peanut butter. The Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Crunch Bars have a bit of everything if made properly. They a crispy and crunchy base, a smooth peanut butter middle layer and topped with a creamy chocolate peanut butter mixture. In other words they are bars of delightful pleasure.

My CPBFCB (thank goodness for abbreviations) were not as prettily layered as Annas’ and I did some minor adjustments as well but they still tasted great with a rich peanuty and chocolate flavour. The instructions may be a bit long but it is actually a fairly simple and easy recipe to follow so Here comes the ingredients.

125g semi-sweet chocolate
100g + 1/2 tbsp butter
1.5 cups Rice Krispy cereal (I used Coco Pops because me = chocoholic)
200g PB
pinch of salt
3/4 to 1.5 cups powdered sugar (Anna mentioned only using half of this so I only ended up using 2/3 c)

I lined a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with baking paper or non-stick foil or if using regular foil spray with cooking oil.

In a medium saucepan melt the 1/2 tbsp of butter and half of the chocolate. Then stir in half of the peanut butter and when well mixed, add in 1 cup of the rice krispy/coco pops. Then spread on the bottom of the pan to form the base and chill for 15 minutes or until it is firm.

Clean out the saucepan and then melt the butter over medium heat and add the pinch of salt. Melt in the rest of the peanut butter and stir until it becomes of smooth consistency. Now add the powdered sugar to taste but keep in mind not to add in too much. Poor just less than half of this liquid mixture over the base and pour remaining rice krispies/coco pops onto the middle layer. Gently press them into this layer. Chill again at this point to form distinct layers or else it will end up into one big layer like mine.

Melt the remaining half of the chocolate either separately in a microwave-safe bowl or just put it into the peanut butter mixture and warm on low-medium heat. Finally pour the peanut butter and chocolate mixture on top to form the last layer. Now you can add some more rice krispies/coco pops like I have or just leave it as is.

Chill until it is set and cut into however many pieces you want.

While Pupu and I were waiting for it to chill we watched a movie called “Feast of Love”. It was pretty interesting with romance, drama and slice of life. It shows that love is so fragile and that we should cherish all our relationships sooo to all you readers out there I love you alll!! But, this is after all a food blog and not a movie blog so back to these CPBFCB.

I did think they are a little bit too rich but if they were kept to smaller portions then they are fine or you can try my method of choice for eating these which is to heat up some milk in the microwave and then melt in half of the bar and munch merrily on the other half
Have a go and try making these as they are surprisingly easy and most of all have fun and enjoy^^!

FFichiban

Wow where to start… ok continuing with my PB and choc frenzy I found a gem of a recipe from Tara at Should You Eat That?. To put it simply they are amazing, drool-inducing, tongue tantalizing bites of heaven which causes angels to descend upon you on puffy white clouds made of fairy floss and sprinkling manna all around you… I cannot thank Tara enough for this recipe haha. The balance of the chocolate to the peanut butter is just perfect even though I didnt follow the recipe to the letter and mine do look quite different to hers’. Anyway, enough rambling on because I am sure everyone is eager to get onto the recipe and of course the photoooss! Soooooo here comes the ingredients.

175g dark or milk chocolate
100g unsalted butter
2 eggs, lightly beaten
215g (1C) caster sugar
75g (1/2C) plain flour
2Tbsp cocoa powder
200g (3/4C) crunchy peanut butter

For my brownies I used Lindt Milk Chocolate because I still have lots left over from the Lindt warehouse sale a while back and instead of of caster sugar I used confectioner’s sugar, and also my peanut butter was randomly dolloped around on top so I was not too sure how much I ended up using. In cooking sometimes I just base measurements on “feeling” hee hee (ie I’m too lazy to measure them out accurately).

Tara also mentioned to use 16cm x 26cm pan but I found it a little to big but only slightly as I didn’t have enough batter to spread it evenly into the corners but yeah that again is only a minor detail and not very important.

Firstly, break or chop up the chocolate roughly and microwave with the butter at 1 minute bursts until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth. Combine the flour, cocoa powder and sugar in a different bowl. Once the chocolate mix is smooth stir in the eggs and the flour mixture but keep in mind not to overmix.

Pour the mixture into a pan lined with baking paper and then dollop on the peanut butter and you can then create swirls with a knife or skewer but I ended up just lumping on the peanut butter until I thought fit. Now we bake the mixture in a pre-heated oven for roughly 40mins at 160 degrees C. Crumbs should cling to a toothpick/skewer stuck into the brownie when its ready, allow to cool for a few minutes and then serve with a nice glass of milk.

I have to say again these brownies are absolutely divine and will brighten anybody’s day. Perfect food for a rainy/stormy grey afternoon like today. I’m also pretty sure this would win over any non peanut butter and chocolate fans out there so go on and give this a try! It is surprisingly easy to bake since even I can do it hee hee

Here are some more photos with me trying to be artsy so please enjoy!

NOTE OF WARNING: These brownies may cause hallucinations… Bake at own risk!!

FFichiban

ITS… peanut butter chocolate time peanut butter chocolate timme… peanut budda chocolate… peanut budda chocolate… peanut budda chocolate and a baseball bat…

Ok, enough singing/dancing bananas and onto my latest kitchen experiment… the peanut butter centres, which I shamelessly stole from Su-Yin of The Journal of a Girl who loves to Cook. So a big thanks to her for the recipe and much love from us at Here Comes the Food. I am also a very big PB fan but I am into the crunchy crunchy types, so the crunchier the better! I’ve been eyeing these PB centres for a while now and finally gave them a shot and to my surprise the ones I made were not too sweet as I expected. Anyway I’ll describe them in more detail later on because here comes the ingredients.

Chocolate Dough:
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup dutch cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 large egg
1/2 tablespoon milk

PB filling:
1/4 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter

For the chocolate dough sift the plain flour, cocoa powder and baking soda into a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl beat the butter, sugars and peanut butter together then add in the egg and milk. Su-Yin also added 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla into her chocolate dough but since I didn’t have any I left it out so mine would taste different to hers. I would recommend adding in the vanilla as it would give the dough another dimension of taste and smell. Now add the flour mixture to the egg mixture 1/3 at a time until fully incorporated.

For the PB filling all you need to do is mix the peanut butter with the icing sugar until its smooth.

Form the chocolate dough into balls and flatten them on the palm of your hand. Scoop some PB filling into the dough and seal it up evenly like Su-Yin or unevenly like mine for a nice veining of PB in your centres haha. Flatten dough balls slightly on a baking tray and bake them at 190 degrees C for about 8 minutes or until there is a some slight cracking on the surface. Allow to cool for a little while before serving with a nice tall glass of cold milk ^^ YUMM! I ended up with about 10 PB centres with a mini baby one as usual haha. These fatter ones were mine.

Assessing my PB centres I think there was a nice balance between my chooclate dough which was not sweet at all but had a cocoa flavour and the PB which was sweeter and richer. Even though the peanut butter I used was homemade one from Nutshack and is not as sweet as the ones in supermarkets. These smaller/neater ones were made by Pupu.