Chocolate Raspberry Peanut Butter

Have I died and gone to heaven?! Who knew that by finally attempting to make my own peanut butter, I'd become obsessed and test out new combinations?

First there was honey nut, then coconut and now, the chocolate obsession has begun. You can rest assured I made two batches of this stuff...

Ingredients

• 2 c roasted peanuts
• 1 c chocolate chunks/chips
• 3 T almond oil
• splash of raspberry extract

Directions

The preparation is very similar to that of regular peanut butter. While the peanuts roasted at 350° for 12 minutes, I pulsed the chocolate chunks in my food processor (and tried not to eat chunks straight out of the bag...).

If you're going to follow this step, at least wait for the peanuts to cool before processing them with the chocolate! I couldn't wait, so my hot peanuts melted the chocolate :) It made for a nice, gooey mess. Then in went the almond oil and raspberry extract to keep the peanut butter from hardening into some sort of peanut fudge. Unless you like peanut fudge...

I haven't been able to stop eating this stuff! It goes on waffles, in sandwiches, on toast and oh yeah, in an awesome smoothie I can't wait to make again.

Chocolate Raspberry Smoothie

• 2 T chocolate raspberry peanut butter
• 1 banana
• 1/2 c frozen raspberries
• 1/2 c frozen strawberries
• 1 c nonfat milk
• 1/2 T chia seeds
• 1 small squirt of no sugar added chocolate syrup
• ice cubes and/or water to thin/thicken it out

I've been going on a bit of a smoothie binge lately. Sadly, my French press broke and I'm a little too cheap to replace it right now (we have a free Starbucks machine at work!), so smoothies have been important in waking me up in the mornings! Especially on those days when I have to get up at 5 a.m. for work...

But yeah, this peanut butter is ah-mazing! Go, make it now. I will need to replenish my supply again soon!

Week 7: ...involves peanut butter

Can you believe it's already the seventh week of 2011?! In my quest to "try something new every week" this year, I've hit my 100th post today. Well, my 100th since switching to Wordpress from Blogger. I've actually been blogging since 2007, but I've posted 100 entries in just over seven months. Crazy, huh?

I digress. That is not my new thing, since I've blogged over 500 entries in that period of time. You'll remember that last week I whipped up two batches of home made peanut butter and this week I put it to good use making chocolate peanut butter truffles! Well, the peanut butter didn't make the truffles, I did. In all my years of being addicted to loving chocolate, I've never once made a truffle before this week.

So let's bring on this week's new thing:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles (made by yours truly for J.D.'s Valentine's Day gift)

I'll admit, the recipe I found seemed pretty intense at first (hey, I was reading it off my cell phone, it looked much longer than it actually was, haha -- that's what she said).

Ingredients:

• 1 c chopped bittersweet chocolate or chocolate chips
• 1/2 c cream
• 1/2 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy
• 2 c chocolate candy coating, for dipping
• optional decorations: crushed peanuts, peanut butter cups, or peanut butter chips

Directions:

Place the chopped chocolate or chocolate chips and the cream in a medium microwave-safe bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. **Every time it says microwave, I went with a double boiler method. You could do either, obviously.

Once the chocolate has melted, add the peanut butter and stir until the mixture is entirely smooth. It may not look like it will come together, but keep stirring and you will eventually have a smooth, shiny chocolate mixture. This is your “ganache,” or truffle center.

Cover the top of the ganache with a layer of cling wrap, and place the bowl in the refrigerator until it is firm enough to scoop, at least 4 hours or overnight.

Cover a baking sheet with foil. Using a small cookie or candy scoop, or a teaspoon, scoop up small balls of the ganache and roll them between your palms to get a round shape. Return the balls to the refrigerator to chill while you melt the chocolate coating.

Place the chocolate candy coating in a small bowl and microwave until melted, stirring after every 45 seconds to prevent overheating. Allow the coating to cool for a few minutes, until it is still warm but not so hot as to melt the truffle centers.

How cute is this pink spatula with hearts?!?!

Once the coating has cooled a bit, remove the tray of truffle centers from the refrigerator. Using dipping tools or a fork, dip a center into the melted chocolate until it is completely submerged. Remove it from the coating and allow the excess to drip back into the bowl. Place the truffle on the foil-covered baking sheet and repeat with remaining truffles and chocolate. If desired, you can decorate the truffles with crushed peanuts or peanut butter cup candies while the chocolate is still wet. Alternately, you can melt a small amount of peanut butter chips and drizzle the melted chips over the tops of the truffles. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.

**Note, I realized that no matter what I tried, the chocolate covering was melting the truffle centers and ruining the consistency of the melted chocolate. This is where I started over and got smart, painting the truffles with a silicone pastry brush instead of submerging them, which led to the melted centers and a subsequent compromised candy coating.

Making truffles (for someone as inexperienced at pastry as I am) was kind of an ordeal! I became super frustrated really easily, but in the end I think it worked out! It was definitely worth it, and as with everything I've tried this year: I definitely want to try it again and see what kind of skills I can develop and if I can perfect the art of making chocolates. Who knows, maybe I'll make a whole "box of chocolates" with various truffle centers. Forrest Gump would be proud.

Sooooo, who wants to come help me eat some of these!? (And by me, I clearly mean J.D.). We have over 15 still in the fridge and I've already had an amount that certainly is more than two...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a sandwich with my leftover coconut peanut butter and some pineapple mango jam. Très tropical...

Week 6: Home made peanut butter

I use peanut butter in a variety of ways. Over the next few weeks, I think I'm going to be posting a few of the applications I've had for peanut butter. But before we get to that, I need some peanut butter! Instead of buying some from the store (let's face it, I've got a million containers of the stuff already), I decided I would try to make it myself for the first time ever!

It's actually very simple. I googled TONS of recipes and decided just to wing it and add a little bit of oil at a time until I got the right consistency. I started by roasting 2 cups of shelled peanuts at 350º for about 12 minutes.

Next I ground a fourth of the peanuts, so one half cup into the food processor.

After the peanuts were still somewhat chunky (I do not like creamy peanut butter!!!), I added 1 teaspoon of almond oil and pulsed some more in my processor. Note: Almond oil was all I could find in non-Costco-sized-quantities at the grocery store. And I couldn't taste the difference! You could use peanut oil if you had access to it, and I've even heard olive oil will work just as well. I'm kind of skeptical about that, but it's always an option.

Another side note: everything I found said to pulse half the peanuts and add half the oil, then repeat. However, my cheap processor couldn't really handle that. The second time around I did all the dry ingredients first, then added all the wet. I also put in one tablespoon of honey, along with two more teaspoons of the almond oil in addition to the remaining half cup of peanuts. So here's the final tally = 1 c peanuts, 3 t almond oil and 1 T honey... pulse til blended at desired consistency.

As you can see, I had two one-cup containers so I decided to get a little crazy! In addition to honey peanut butter, I also made coconut peanut butter. Same exact recipe as before, plus one cup of coconut flakes and I added an extra teaspoon of oil to go with the extra cup of dry ingredients (1 c peanuts, 1 c coconut flakes, 4 t almond oil and 1 T honey).

The verdict?! I love them both! I can't wait to get creative and experiment with other flavors, textures, etc. If you have any tips for me, let me know!! :)

Now that I have two cups of homemade peanut butter, be on the lookout for more peanut butter-laden recipes to come on this blog in the next few weeks!