Peanut Butter Cups

To round out the birthday celebration I decided to try my hand at making some peanut butter cups. I found this recipe on Brown Eyed Baker and knew I had to try them. I was a little heavy handed on the chocolate with mine so they wound up with a higher chocolate to peanut butter ratio than a traditional Reese's but the flavor of the peanut butter filling was right on and delicious. They were very fun to make and I will definitely try my hand at them again and fill each cup with a little less chocolate for the peanut butter lovers in my family. This time my mom brought the leftovers to work and they were a definite hit with her friends there.

Peanut Butter Cups
From Brown Eyed Baker

Ingredients:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
4 cup milk chocolate chips (two 11.5 oz bags)
1/4 cup vegetable shortening

Directions:
Line a mini muffin tin with paper liners; set aside. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, combine the peanut butter, butter and brown sugar over medium heat. Heat until completely melted and starting to bubble a little, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat. Add the confectioners' sugar a 1/4 cup at a time, stirring until completely combined with the peanut butter mixture after each addition. Set aside and let cool.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips and shortening together in the microwave on 50% power in 30 second increments, until completely melted, stirring after each burst.

Using a small cookie scoop or a couple of teaspoons, spoon melted chocolate into the bottom of each lined muffin cup.

Use a heaping teaspoon to scoop out the peanut butter mixture. Roll it into a ball, and then flatten it slightly into a disk. Place on the prepared baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Once finished with all of the peanut butter mixture, refrigerate both the muffin tins and the peanut butter patties for about 30 minutes.

Place a peanut butter patty on top of each chocolate lined muffin liner. Then use a scoop or a spoon to add more melted chocolate on top and around each peanut butter patty. (If the melted chocolate firmed up, just pop it back into the microwave at 50% power for 30 seconds or so to re-melt.)

Refrigerate again for 30 minutes, then you are ready to serve! Store in the refrigerator or freezer.  You can keep at room temperature in an airtight container if you're going to serve them the same day, but they'll start to get soft if not a cool room temperature.

Reese's Cup Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

So you know from my last post that my mom loves French onion soup. Well when is comes to dessert her favorite combination of flavors is chocolate and peanut butter. It is not my favorite flavor combination so I don't make it very often but the birthday girl gets her favorite so off I went to find the ultimate in chocolate and peanut butter desserts. After much searching I decided on this cake from Annie's Eats and homemade chocolate peanut butter cups which I will post about later this week. Both of these came out great and she was very happy. The cake and frosting are both very rich so we had a lot of cake left over. I made mom take two big pieces home and Joe took the rest to work the next day. I think he said it lasted about 20 minutes before the plate was practically licked clean.

Now I made a small mistake while making the frosting and only put in 1 1/2 instead of 2 cups of confectioners sugar. The icing was still light and fluffy, it just had more peanut butter flavor that it probably would have if I had added all 2 cups of sugar. So I suggest you taste as you go along and stop adding the sugar when the flavor is to your peanut butter liking.

Reese's Cup Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
From Annie's Eats

Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

For the icing:
2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 cups creamy peanut butter
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup heavy cream

miniature Reese's cups, halved and/or chopped for decoration

Directions:
For the cake, center a rack in the over and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9x2" round cake pans, dust the insides with flour, tap out the excess and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper. Place the pans on a baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for about 2 minutes, until thoroughly blended into the butter. Add the eggs and yolks one at a time, beating for one minute after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk; add the dry ingredients in 3 additions and the butter milk in 2 (beginning and ending with the dry ingredients). Mix each addition only until it is blended into the batter. Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans.

Bake for 26-30 minutes or until the cakes feel springy to the touch and start to pull away from the sides of the pans. Transfer to wore racks to cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.

For the icing, place the confectioner's sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

To assemble the cake, level each cake layer and place one cake layer on a cardboard circle covered in foil. Spread peanut butter frosting on top of the cake layer. Place the second cake layer on top of the frosting. Frost the tops and outside of the cake with remaining peanut butter frosting. Decorate with halved and chopped Reese's cups as desired.

French Onion Soup

Oh blog how I have missed you. I have not been a very conscientious blogger over the past month and for that I apologize. It seemed like every time I sat down to work on the blog something came up or I fell asleep waiting for my ancient laptop to boot up. I also haven't been cooking too many wonderful blog-worthy dishes lately but I promise that is going to change. This recipe was created for my mom's birthday last month. She loves French onion soup and it was actually her "craving"  all through her pregnancy with me. She tells me that she used to have it for lunch everyday while she was pregnant. I recently told that story to someone and they commented that I must love onions after all that soup. Interestingly enough, I do love onions now but I didn't really care for them as a child. It is only as an adult that my love and appreciation for the onion has flourished. Now onions are used in a daily basis in my kitchen. I would say more times than not onion makes an appearance in our dinner.

I wanted to try and recreate the classic restaurant style soup for my mom's birthday dinner and I searched high and low for a recipe but couldn't find just one that I liked so I took a few and combined them into one. I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe, Ina Garten's from her How Easy is That? book and a recipe from The Williams Sonoma Collection:  Soup book for inspiration and came out with what I think is a pretty darn good French onion soup. I tested it out on my husband, brother and cousin about two weeks before the birthday dinner and it got good reviews from all of them so I replicated the recipe again for mom's birthday and it came out just as good. Just writing this post makes me want to make it again very soon! Keep in mind that is a little time consuming, not necessarily a quick weeknight meal. Although you can make a big pot of it on the weekend and just not add the bread and cheese. Then during the week just reheat it and broil it just before serving. We did this with the leftovers and they were great the next day.

French Onion Soup
From Colleen's Kitchen Therapy

Ingredients:
3 lbs yellow onions, halved and sliced 1/4 inch thick
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 tsp granulated sugar
3/4 cup brandy
1 1/2 cups good dry white wine
8 cups low sodium beef broth
Salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste

8-10 1 inch thick slices of french bread, toasted
1.5 - 2 cups Gruyere & Gouda cheese, shredded

Directions:
Melt the butter and oil together in the bottom of a 5 quart dutch oven over moderately low heat. Add the onions, toss to coat them in oil and cover the pot. Reduce the heat to low and let them slowly steep for 15 minutes.

Uncover the pot, add the sugar and raise the heat to medium-high. Cook for 40-45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions turn golden brown.

Add the brandy, stir to loosen any brown bits in the bottom of the pan and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the white wine and simmer for 15 more minutes. Add in the beef broth and salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 20 minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary.

Preheat the broiler with a rack 5 inches below the heating element. Ladle the soup into oven safe bowls. Top each both with a piece of the toasted bread and a heaping mound of the cheese mixture. Broil for 3 to 5 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve immediately.