Mom's Peanut Butter Balls

All right, all right.... so it doesn't involve baking. But I do expand my horizons to candy making and other general dessert goodness, so there.

While nothing about these candies scream "Christmas" these are a holiday goodie to me, because as long as I remember my mom would make mountains of them every December. My brothers and I would be there in the kitchen rolling and dipping (and eating, of course) for hours. We wouldn't have a spare cookie sheet or pizza pan in the house, and every bit of fridge space was taken over with precariously balanced sheets of candies. They're easy to put together, though a tad time consuming, and they're generally well received by the multitudes. If you like peanut butter and chocolate, you'll love these.

Mom's Peanut Butter Balls

1 lb Butter, melted
18 oz Creamy Peanut Butter
9 1/2 oz Powdered Sugar
2 14.4 oz boxes Graham Crackers (Honey flavored)
24 oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 tbsp Vegetable Oil

Yes, a whole pound of butter. Disclaimer: These are not good for you.

Crush the graham crackers into fine crumbs. The easiest way is in a food processor, I do about a package (1/3 of a box) at a time, break into somewhat even pieces and then just let it run. A few chunks won't hurt anything, but the finer the crumb the smoother the consistency of the finished candy. Also, larger crumbs won't absorb as much liquid and could lead to a runny mixture, needing some extra crumbs to thicken it up. My mom was old-school and always did it with wax paper and a rolling pin, and by the end of the day she'd get tired and wouldn't crush them as much as the first batches, and they were never as good of quality.

Combine all ingredients except chocolate and oil in a mixing bowl - I like my stand mixer of course, but this is totally doable by hand. If you choose the power tool option, layer your ingredients so that at least a 1/3 of the graham cracker is on top and go at the lowest speed to start, the melted butter can have a tendency to splash and powdered sugar likes to fly everywhere. After it starts to come together boost it up to medium or medium-high until it starts to firm up and come away from the sides of the bowl.

It should be wet looking but still firm, if it's exceptionally gooey add a little extra graham cracker to tighten it up. Again, differing from my mom, I weigh all my ingredients and make sure my graham cracker is dust, so I haven't encountered this problem near as often as she does. 

Now the fun part! Scoop (I use a #40 disher, or Oxo medium size) into even amounts and roll into balls. Place on a waxed paper lined cookie sheet and chill for at least an hour, or until firm. It makes a lot of candies, about 5 dozen. And if you're impatient, I think they're totally delicious plain and I'll munch on them now.

When you're ready to start dipping, melt your chocolate in a double boiler with the little bit of vegetable oil. The oil allows for a smooth and even coating of the candy. Double boilers come packaged as sets or you can just use a stainless steel mixing bowl and a regular saucepan. Make sure the bowl is bigger than the pan, you do not want the bottom to touch the water. Add about an inch of water to the bottom pan, set it over low heat, and slowly melt the chocolate while stirring frequently. When all the chips are ALMOST melted, pull from heat and stir until smooth. Dip the candy one at a time, completely coating in chocolate and then letting the excess drip back into the pan. I use a large serving fork, and tap it against the side of the pan to make sure the coat is even. The more you let it drip into the pan, the less of a puddle you'll have on the bottom of your finished candies. 

Place the dipped balls back onto a waxed paper lined cookie sheet. You will need about twice as much space for the dipped candy as for the rolled balls. I can fit one batch of balls onto one 18x13 cookie sheet, and then need two when I dip. If the balls won't come off your dipping tool easily, use a toothpick to slide them off gently. 

Ooohhh, shiny.

Now, just chill until firm then package as you please. Store in refrigerator. 

Enjoy.

Thanksgiving Dessert Marathon Week!

So, here's a quick preview of the many treats I'll be prepping for this week.

For the in-laws' Thanksgiving dinner: a double layer Apple Spice Cake, with a sweet apple pie filling and a cinnamon honey buttercream.

For my parents' Thanksgiving dinner: Chocolate Mousse Pie (3) and No-Bake Cherry Cheesecake Pie (2).

For our visit to out-of-town relatives: Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake, Cherry Pecan Oatmeal Cookies, and Mom's Peanut Butter Balls (at least I did that one last week, whew).

Sound exhausting? You bet. Sound typical of me? Most definitely. No guarantees I'll have posts up by Thanksgiving, but I'll get to them as fast as I can. A girl's gotta breathe.

Have a delicious Turkey Day!

Banana Coffee Cake

So having indulged in a super low price on bananas, I had a couple bunches of nicely ripe bananas sitting on my counter. Therefore this week's recipe was dictated - banana.

But what? Banana muffins, banana cake, banana cookies... So many options, but only time for one.

I turned to my favorite baking tome, the Taste of Home Baking Book, and started flipping. I saw this recipe for Banana Coffee Cake, and it caught my eye. I had never actually done a coffee cake before (bizarre, I know), and this one seemed easy and yummy, and best of all I had everything on hand. Being me, I couldn't resist a few alterations - a nice streusel topping and a sweet icing - it didn't seem like a coffee cake without it.

The result? A soft, moist, tender cake with a little cinnamon kick and lots of yummy chewy pecan chunks. It reminded me of my mom's banana nut muffins - which were more a cake then a muffin, taken from an old banana bread recipe. A solid recipe which will go into my file for future reference.

Also excuse the lack of starting photos, I got distracted. But refer to my cookie recipes for more on the Creaming Method.

Banana Nut Coffee Cake
Adapted from Taste Of Home: Baking Book


Cake:
8 oz Cream Cheese, softened
4 oz Butter, softened (1 stick)
10 oz Sugar
2 Eggs
1 cup Banana, 3 medium ripe bananas pureed
1 tsp Vanilla
9 oz Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
2 oz Pecans, chopped

Topping:
4 oz Butter, softened (1 stick)
4 oz Brown Sugar
4 oz Flour
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
2 oz Pecans, chopped

Icing:
8 oz Powdered Sugar
2-4 tbsp Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla

In the bowl of your mixer beat the butter on medium for a minute, then add cream cheese. When the mixture is beaten fairly smooth, add the sugar and cream until light and fluffy. Lightly beat eggs with vanilla, slowly add to the creamed mixture with mixer on low. Add the banana puree. Mix together flour, powder, soda, and cinnamon. Add to the bowl slowly, in stages, allowing it to incorporate before adding the next amount. On lowest speed add in pecans and allow to fully mix. Please do not overmix batter, will create a tough cake. Pour into a sprayed 9x13 pan, and spread evenly.

Now make your streusel topping. Cream together your butter and sugar, then add your flour and cinnamon all at once. Mix until the mixture becomes crumbly, then throw in the pecans. Sprinkle liberally over the top of the cake. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 min, or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely, then prepare your icing. Put your sugar in a bowl, then add your vanilla. Slowly whisk in milk until desired consistency, it will not take very much at all because you want a thick icing. Whisk until smooth. You can either put it in a piping bag (which I did) or drizzle it with a spoon.

Mmmmmm. Golden brown and delicious. 

Look how moist that is, and all those yummy pecans and that sweet icing... 

Snickerdoodles

To be honest, I was never really a snickerdoodle person. I always thought sugar a little dull, and wasn't a huge cinnamon person either. But ever since we started dating, my husband has bugged me to make them for him. Now, 7+ years later, I finally did. And he didn't really like these, go figure.

I started with this recipe: Snickerdoodles, and converted to weight measures. I doubled the batch, added 1/2 tsp cinnamon to the dough, and did 1/2 cup sugar to the 2 tsp cinnamon in the topping. I barely got 3 dozen out of the double batch, which was odd even though I do large cookies. I have to say, they were really tasty, but not quite what I expected. The cookie itself was nice and moist and chewy, but I didn't get quite the crackle from the topping that I expected. They also spread out a lot, ending up rather thin. This stumped me a bit, because I didn't even flatten them and I baked them chilled, which prevents spread. So why didn't I get the puffy beauties pictured there? Not sure. I plan on making them again, probably with a few alterations.

Snickerdoodles
Adapted from JoyOfBaking.com

22 oz Flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
4 tsp Baking Powder
1 lb Butter
24 oz Sugar (1 lb 8 oz)
4 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla

Topping:
1/2 c Sugar
2 tsp Cinnamon

This recipe uses the Creaming Method. For pictures and details, check out Chocolate Chip Cookies.

In a stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat the butter until smooth, then add the sugar and beat till light and fluffy. Scrape bowl.

Above: Beaten butter. Below: Creamed butter and sugar

Beat together the eggs and vanilla in a small bowl, then add slowly drizzle into the butter mixture with the mixer on low. Scrape bowl.

Above: With egg added. Below: Finished dough. 

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl. Add to the mixer in stages, allowing the previous addition to incorporate before adding more. Mix until you have a smooth dough. If it's too soft, refrigerate for a bit until it firms up. Portion the dough out with a disher, I used my large Oxo cookie scoop but that did seem a bit big, I'd try their medium size or a #40 disher. Roll into balls and coat with the topping mixture.

I then froze my dough, and did not flatten it. I baked it at 400 degrees for 15 min, rotating halfway through. Pull them out when they are golden brown around the edges but still soft in the middle. Cool on a wire rack, or on wax/parchment paper on a counter.

Tasty, sweet and cinnamony. Will definitely try again.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

You would think that a baking obsessed woman like I am would have many fond memories of crafting an endless variety of goodies from scratch with her mother and grandmother. Especially hailing like I do from the Midwest. Well, I did have many wonderful moments in the kitchen with my mom, but "scratch" and "variety" were not well known there. My mom, sadly, did a lot of her baking from boxes and mixes. I can count on one hand the number of recipes we created from scratch - chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter balls, banana nut muffins, and cinnamon rolls. My favorite was the cookies, and by the time I was twelve I had taken over control of the cookie-making process. I was very particular about how the margarine and sugar were mixed, how my flour was measured, how they were dolloped onto the cookie sheets. I received a lot of praise for my cookies, and they were my signature item.

Then, I went to college, discovered the Food Network Channel and a man called Alton Brown. I realized that all my quirks from childhood had a scientific basis - beating the fat and sugar well, adding extra brown sugar, thoroughly combining the eggs, etc. And he showed me the importance of weighing ingredients, and how a stand mixer is really the only thing that can properly cream butter, and how a disher will create even cookies. He has taught me a lot, and with his aid I have finally perfected my chocolate chip cookies. I may have started with the familiar recipe on the back of a yellow bag, but I have played with amounts and methods until I was satisfied. Warning, this is a large batch - it makes 4 dozen of my large cookies. But the beauty of this is you freeze the scoops of dough, so you can bake off fresh cookies whenever you want.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 lb Butter, softened (2 sticks)
1/2 lb Margarine (2 sticks)
275 g Sugar
300 g Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
675 g Flour
12 g Baking Soda (2 tsp)
12 g Salt (2 tsp)
24 oz Chocolate Chips (semi-sweet)

Beat butter in stand mixer with a paddle attachment on medium speed until broken up and pliable. Add margarine and beat until well blended. Add the sugars and beat until the mixture becomes light and fluffy, gaining volume and a consistent texture, scraping bowl as necessary.

Butter and margarine beaten together

After adding the sugar, this is what you're looking for

Scrape down the bowl. In a separate bowl, lightly beat together eggs and vanilla. With mixer on low, drizzle in the egg mixture. Stop and scrape the bowl, then mix together well. 

Egg goes in... 

Yucky looking but... 

Now it's nice and smooth. 

In another bowl mix together flour, salt, and baking soda. You can sift, but my confession is I have no patience for sifting, I just try and stir it together thoroughly. Add the flour mixture to the mixer in stages, at least 3-4 installments, stopping and scraping occasionally. Try and stop once all the flour is blended in, over-mixing leads to tough cookies. Turn mixer on the lowest speed and add chips, letting it run for a minute or two to make sure they're distributed evenly. 

Starting to add the flour

The finished batter. See how light and smooth it is?

Mmmm, chocolate. 

Scoop with a #20 disher (I use an Oxo Good Grips large cookie scoop) onto cookie sheets lined with wax or parchment paper. Go ahead and fit as many as you can on one sheet, this is going in the freezer. After they're nice and solid, pop them in a ziploc bag with a label and date, and freeze for up to 3 months. When you're ready to enjoy, place frozen scoops on cookie sheets and bake at 375 degrees for 13-15 min, rotating the pan halfway through the bake time. If you have the foresight, letting them thaw in the refrigerator will give you a slightly more even bake. Pull cookies out a little before you think they're done, they continue to bake once they leave the oven. I look at the centers of the cookie, and once it loses the shine but still looks a little soft I pull them out. Cool on a cooling rack or wax paper. 

A Little Theory...

If you feel up to learning a bit of the method behind my madness, read on. There are several key points to making good cookies - not just chocolate chip, but oatmeal raisin and peanut butter and snickerdoodle and on and on. It can also be applied to a lot of cakes. It's called - the Creaming Method. The basis of it is the creaming (duh) of butter and sugar together. It's why a stand mixer is kinda important - it's hard to really beat up the butter with a hand mixer or by hand. Butter temperature is important too - too hard and it won't blend nicely, too soft and it starts to melt. It should just give to pressure when you squeeze the stick. What happens is the sugar punches little holes into the soft butter. This creates little uniform bubbles later on in the batter, and leavens a little by mixing in air. Do not underestimate this! Mixing the eggs together separately lets them incorporate into the batter easier, and helps keep the smoothness and texture going. Adding the flour in stages lets it get absorbed slowly, but over mixing also leads to gluten and a tough cookie. If you want a really nice crumb and melt-in-your-mouth feel to the cookie, pay attention to the mixing. 

A little notes behind my specific ingredient ratio, as well. I use a mixture of both butter and margarine because they serve different purposes. Butter has great flavor, but melts easier and therefore makes a thinner cookie. Margarine keeps it nice and puffy. The higher amount of brown to white sugar makes a chewy, moist cookie. Also, baking with cold dough keeps them high and puffy as well. If you plan on baking off the whole lot, just chill it for at least an hour in the refrigerator. I keep mine frozen, and bake off 6-12 at a time when I feel like it. Frozen dough lends to a little more uneven bake - pretty gooey in the middle when the edges are done. I prefer mine that way, but it's your call. Thawing them in the fridge or on the counter for 10 min would be fine too.

If you want to play with your cookie recipe too, check out Alton Brown's "Three Chips for Sister Marsha" (Ep. 34) on  Good Eats Fan Page. He explains a lot of what I did here, and if you prefer a thin, chewy, or puffy cookie he's got the tips to get you there.

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes

I've made this recipe about a bajillion times by now, they've quickly become a signature item of mine and have been requested at a lot of my functions. Back in January I was given a baby shower, and I decided to make some cupcakes for it. This chocolate cake recipe had been my standard since I first made it, so I just portioned it out into muffin tins and voila cupcakes. Of course, being ambitious, I had to add a little surprise - a cream filling. And top it with a rich chocolate buttercream. Now, those were good. Devoured by the shower guests. But then I had to go and make them better. I found a new sinfully delicious chocolate fudge frosting. And then I made them again and again as people went "OMG CUPCAKES!"

Disclaimer: You will not eat just one. In fact you'll be hard pressed to stop at two. I am in no way liable for any weight gain or cavities resulting from this recipe. They are not low-fat or low-sugar or low-calorie. They are however absolutely addictive and delicious.

This really is my favorite cake recipe. There's no butter to soften, which means you can whip it up in no time flat. And it avoids a lot of the creaming pitfalls. The frosting is so simple that I had it memorized after making it twice. It's pretty hard to screw up. However, it is a bit time consuming and there are quite a few different pieces to the puzzle. I use my mixer for all three components, so that means washing my bowl a couple times. It's worth the effort, I promise. You might never have a Hostess cupcake again after these. 

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes 

Cake Batter
3/4 c Water
2 1/4 oz Cocoa Powder
12 oz Light Brown Sugar
3 fl oz Vegetable Oil (1/4 c + 2 tbsp)
2 Eggs
5 1/2 oz Flour
1 1/8 tsp Baking Powder
1 1/8 tsp Baking Soda
3/4 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
3/4 cup Milk

Filling
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
1/4 cup Powdered Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla

Frosting
1 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
6 oz Chocolate Chips (I use semi-sweet, but whatever is your favorite.)
1 lb Powdered Sugar (approximately)
2 piping bags (I use disposable plastic ones) and 2 star tips

First, heat the water to boiling. I use a Pyrex measuring cup so I just zap it in the microwave for 2-3 minutes. Put the cocoa powder in a bowl (stainless steel or glass, please), and whisk in the boiling water. It should be really smooth with no clumps, and it'll look the consistency of melted chocolate. Now set aside this mixture to cool down while you assemble everything else.

Place the brown sugar and the oil in your stand mixer. Let it go ahead and mix up at a nice medium speed. Break the eggs into a bowl and lightly beat them together. Give the sugar mixture a quick scrape then turn it on low, adding the eggs slowly. They should be well incorporated. Mix together the flour, baking powder and soda, and salt. Stir the vanilla into the milk. You're going to alternate flour and milk additions - a third of the flour, half the milk, another third flour, the rest of the milk, then finish with flour. Scrape frequently and go slowly to create a smooth batter. Now that the flour is in don't just let the mixer run - too much mixing will create a tough cake.

Now we have a nice batter. Looks almost like butterscotch. But it's not chocolate yet. So turn your mixer on low and drizzle in that chocolate mixture we made in the beginning. Scrape the bowl and mix just until it's completely blended. 

This is a very very loose batter. Don't worry, you didn't screw up, it's supposed to look like this. Pop some liners into your muffin tins and now it's time to portion. I'm a fan of dishers to give me an even amount of batter, though it can be tricky with this recipe. I used my large Oxo cookie scoop, one scoop per cupcake. Another easy way would be to pour the batter into a measuring cup (or anything with a spout) and divide it out that way. You're going to bake these at 350 degrees for about 20-22 minutes. Halfway through, flip the pans - top to bottom, bottom to top, and also rotate them 180 degrees. Standard toothpick test for checking if they're done, a few crumbs on the toothpick are ok though. Don't overbake. Let them cool slightly, then pop them out of the pans onto a cookie sheet and refrigerate until cold.

They are not going to be very tall. It's just not a very puffy recipe, and especially after they cool they end up pretty flat. But that just calls for more frosting, right? 

Now prepare the filling. It's just fresh whipped cream, and trust me once you taste it you'll never go back to Cool Whip. For best results, chill your bowl and whisk attachment, and make sure the cream is nice and cold.  Just add cream, sugar, and vanilla into the bowl and beat at a medium speed until frothy and starting to thicken. Once it has some body to it, turn that mixer up to high. We're looking for stiff peaks, but beware! Stiff peaks can very quickly turn into butter if you're not watching. So please do not take your eyes off of it. I tend to stop it when peaks just start to appear to give it a quick taste test. Here's where you can add some more sugar or another splash of vanilla if you feel like it. It's better to add less to start with, you can always add more now but you can't take it out if it's too sweet. When you're done stick it back in the fridge so it stays nice and chilly. 

Last item to prepare is the frosting. Heat the cream in a saucepan - if you have one with a rounded bottom use that, it's better for whisking. The cream should just barely simmer, once you start to see some ripples or a skin to the top pull it off. Dump in your chips and start whisking, and don't stop until it's completely smooth. Have an ice bath ready - a bowl bigger than your saucepan half full of ice water. Place the pan in the ice bath and whisk until it's nice and cold. It'll take a little bit. Now you have a choice for adding the sugar: hand whisking or mixer. I chose the mixer. Transfer it to your mixing bowl and set it on a medium-low speed, slowly adding in your powdered sugar. Stop it every once in a while for a good scrape. How much sugar you add is up to you and your needs and tastes. The more you add the thicker the frosting will be, and depending on what chips you started with you might want it sweeter. After you get the flavor where you want it, turn it up higher for a bit to really whip it and give it some volume for a fluffy frosting. If you give it a chill in the fridge before that final whip it'll have a little better texture, but not necessary. 

All right, now we have all our pieces ready to go. Fit a piping bag with a star tip (I have a #32 Wilton tip) and fill with whipped cream. 

Now stick the tip down into the center of a cupcake, until almost the top of the metal tip. Squeeze very gently and slowly, for only a few seconds. The top of the cupcake will start to rise, but don't go overboard or it'll crack. It won't take much at all. 

You now have a filled cupcake. Go ahead and finish off the batch. You might have whipped cream left over, but that's what spoons are for. Also delish with fresh strawberries. 

The final step is frosting. I use the same size star tip for the frosting, but a bigger one also looks really nice on cupcakes. Work from the outside to the center, just spiral in slow and steady. Keep the pressure on the piping bag as even as you can. 

Make sure to store these in a refrigerator. If you have a covered container they'd fit in that's best. Do not put plastic wrap over them when the frosting is fresh, it will just smudge. Let it harden for an hour or two before wrapping.

Enjoy.