molasses-peanut chews

So I set out to make caramels. Truly not knowing what I wanted when I first poured the sugar and milk into the pot what was going to come of it. (I love making new recipes that way--going in totally blind when the thermometer gauge is ticking away). I did have a little bit of inspiration from an article in the NYT article about a famous chocolate-caramel recipe from 1881? Wild, from 1881. So the first batch was awful, very molasses overpowering, and no chocolate taste whatsoever. (sorry NYT, but still love you and look up to you). I know I followed everything to the T and know you have to literally "set up camp by the stove, do not leave pot" when making candy and/or caramels. The end result needed a lot more "ummphf". So the second batch I added in more butter, more salt, used half & half, and added in salty peanuts. BINGO. This recipe is a keeper. And I swear the second day they tasted even better. Everyone who was my taste-tester loved them. So I renamed them molasses-peanut chews because, well, thats what they taste like.
Super easy to make too. If you are familiar with making caramels then these will be a breeze for you. Are there some of you out there that still have last minute baking gifts to give? Use this. Trust me, these will knock their socks off.
I don't know if I will have another post before Christmas...Sooooo. I want to wish you all a merry christmas, happy holidays, etc... But more importantly: thank you truly for being such wonderful, awesome, incredible and loving fans. As I've said before "you guys rock my world"!

Cook Notes: if you have trouble with caramels here are a few things I can suggest to help you out. Get a good candy thermometer. Do not leave the stove when your mixture starts to boil. Set up camp at your stove until it's ready to pour. Stir like crazy. Be patient, it takes a good 15 - 20 minutes to get your caramels at the right temperature. The right temperature is 248 degrees (maybe minus 1 or 2 degrees)--watch that thermometer; anything higher in temp and you'll have hard candy.

molasses peanut chews
Inspired from 1881: Chocolate Caramels as seen in NYT
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4 TB salted butter
About 1 TB butter to grease ceramic dish
4 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup half & half
1 cup molasses
1 cup white sugar
1 ts high quality vanilla extract
Giant pinch of sea salt
½ cup of salted, roasted peanuts

Wax paper squares for wrapping caramels
Extra butter for greasing up your knife when cutting caramels

Remember this is hot sugar, never touch the hot sugar, never be tempted to taste test, and always use oven mits.
Butter an 8-by-8-inch or 8 x 9 baking dish. Get out a candy thermometer and clip onto pot.
In a large heavy duty pot (with high sides preferably) combine the butter, chocolate, milk, molasses, sugar, and salt. Place over a medium heat and stir constantly and CONSTANTLY scraping the bottom of pan. (You will be doing this for a while). Let it boil and cook until the temperature reaches around 247 -249 (soft ball stage). Once it hits this temperature remove from heat
And add in the vanilla extract (it will make a lot of noise and sizzle, just add in and stand back then stir in)
Once mixed, pour the hot mixture into your prepared buttered baking dish.
Sprinkle the peanuts on top of the caramel. Push peanuts down into caramel using rubber spatula—do not use your hands!
In about an hour or 45 minutes you should be able to handle caramel. Gently lift if out of baking dish and transfer to a wooden board or plastic cutting board.
Using a sharp knife cut long strips about ¾ of an inch, then cut those strips into 1 or 2 inch pieces.) Wrap in wax paper.
Should make about 70 pieces; all dependant on how you cut them (what size).

sea salted buttermilk biscuits stuffed w/ chocolate

Years ago when I lived in Washington, DC for a stint there was this place called Bread & Chocolate. When I first saw the sign I thought now there's a great concept: bread and chocolate, how fabulous is that? And I literally thought they sold bread with chocolate in some sort of manner; curious of course to see how and which way they did it; also thinking this is a great fondue idea too. But no they just sold regular bakery goods and fresh french bread. Very dissapointing. In all my food travels, meeting other foodies, I've learned from others that bread, salt and chocolate do pair very well together and I've seen it done many ways. My favorite being a sourdough french toast stuffed with milk chocolate. (I need to recreate that at home). But for now here is my take on three of my favorite ingredients: buttermilk biscuits, Scharffen Berger chocolate and sea salt. Seriously this combo is incredible, especially when they are just warm, fresh out of the oven.

One could make this a fancy dessert by adding fresh chopped strawberries and freshly whipped cream. Delightful.

Sea salted buttermilk biscuits stuffed w/ milk chocolate
biscuit recipe loosely adapted from Cook's Illustrated
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2 cups flour
1 TB baking powder
1 TB sugar
1 ts salt
½ ts baking soda
5 TB unsalted butter, grated
1 ½ cup buttermilk
1-inch of 2-inch chunks of high quality milk chocolate
Additional flour
2 TB melted butter
Pinches of sea salt for lightly dusting the tops

A small bowl with ¼ cup of flour, set aside (used for your hands when touching the flour)
Grate your 5 TB of butter with a cheese grater or food processor, place back in freezer till ready to use.
Preheat oven to 500ºF. Spray a jellyroll pan with nonstick spray and/or parchment paper.
Get your additional 2 TB of melted butter ready to go.

In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt.
Using a fork or pastry blender, mix the butter until you have small little crumbles.
Next fold in the buttermilk until everything is just blended, and there are no streaks of flour remain.
Do not overmix, the mixture should still be fairly lumpy—lumpy is good!
These next parts you need to work fairly fast as we want to keep the dough nice and chilled and not work it too much. Coat your hands with flour and using a spoon scoop out about an 1/8 of a cup of dough. Form into a bottom half of a biscuit, place in a chunk of chocolate; don’t let the chocolate touch the edges. Then scoop out another 1/8 of a cup of dough and place on top. Pinch the two halves together, so the biscuit is nice and sealed up. Flour up your hands again and repeat.
Place the dough balls into the prepared cookie sheet. Brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter, then dust them with the sea salt (light coating of sea salt).
Bake for 5 minutes at 500ºF (middle rack) and then lower the temperature to 450ºF and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes. (cooks Illustrated says 15 but I'm telling you to watch them at the 10 minute mark).
Should make about 10 – 12; depending on size you make your biscuits.

white chocolate bark w/ Oreo's and Cheez Its

Let's call this PMS Christmas bark shall we? :-)
Whoa. I mean whoa dude. This stuff is crazy good. Very addicting. I have a bunch of leftovers at my house. Please come get it? It's free to a good home?
I swear I can hear you all now saying "where in the world does this crazy woman come up with this stuff?" My cravings for sweet & salty run high and deep. I am on a never-ending quest to find the ultimate in sweet & savory.
For those foodies in your life (or you) make them a batch of this for Chrismtas. They will swoon.....they will remember you forever and a day.

white chocolate bark with Oreo’s & Cheez Its
from vanillasugarblog.com
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2 bags or 22 ounces of high quality white chocolate
About 10-12 Oreo's (chocolate filled) cookies cut in half or quarters
2 large handfuls of Cheez It’s cut in half or quarters
2 TB or more of heavy cream
Generous pinch of sea salt

Have all your ingredients chopped up and ready to go as white chocolate does not stay melted long. Place parchment paper on a regular cookie sheet.
Over double boiler melt the white chocolate chips with the heavy cream, add in the salt, stirring a lot until it comes to a nice Ganache. Take off the heat, working fast add in the chopped Oreo’s and cheez its. Mix well and fast, then pour out onto parchment lined cookie sheet. Let harden about 3 hours. Cut into squares.

pb and bacon cookie bark w/ smokehouse almonds

Ready for another foodie christmas gift idea? And boy is this one super easy too. Tasty lil nuggets too. One could easily eat a cookie sheet portion of these with an ice cold glass of milk and call it a good day. These got rave reviews from my clients and friends.

And yeah, I am loving Top Chef All Stars. Did you see last nights episode at the museum? Hilarious! So funny when Dale said he was going to make "corn muffins with Nyquil".
Love every single one of those chefs. What a super, energy-packed group of chefs. They are ALL extremely friggin talented, would pay anything to just hang with them; they ALL make me want to do more, be more creative in the kitchen and rock on with my bad ass foodie self!

Cook notes:
I have given you a peanut butter cookie recipe to use, but in all honesty you can use whatever one you prefer and I also think a plain sugar cookie recipe would work here too. Remember when you are spreading the dough not to make it too thin. You might have to increase your cooking time as you are making one giant cookie in essence. Don't over cook, you want it slighty, a tiny bit, underdone because you want a moist bark, not thin and crispy. I mean one could try thin and crispy but I don't know how that would taste. Please make sure to finely mince the cooked bacon bits--this is not the recipe for large chunks.

pb & bacon cookie bark with smokey almonds
From vanillasugarblog

peanut butter cookie dough w/ bacon
(cookie dough slightly adapted from Baked: New Frontiers)
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1 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour
2 ts of baking soda
1 ts sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 ts pure vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter
½ - ¾ cup of cooked, FINELY chopped bacon chunks (add as much or as little as you like)

For bark:
8 ounces of high quality dark chocolate (semi sweet)
A couple large handfuls of Smokehouse almonds

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together until fluffy.
Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.
The mixture will look light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla and peanut butter and beat until just incorporated.
Add half of the flour mixture and mix for 15 seconds. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.
Using a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the bacon chunks. Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.  I did NOT do this, I went ahead and baked them and it was fine. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (I like to spray them with nonstick spray too). Spread the batter out fairly thick, not too thin. I would wet my fingers or spatula with water and press cookie dough down. Don’t worry about making an even square or circle, this is bark and its supposed to look rustic. Remember, don’t press it too thin!
Bake for 12 - 17 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until the edges of cookie bark are light brown. We don’t want to make this crispy; we want it still soft.
As soon as the pans come out of the oven this is when you want to sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hot cookie bark. In a few minutes the chocolate will melt and you can easily spread it around with a spatula. Then top with the smokey almonds and press them down in a bit to make sure they stay when dry. It’s not advisable to put this in the fridge to set as you will lose the glossiness of the chocolate. Takes a couple hours for chocolate to harden.

gingerbread cupcakes w/ white choco-cream cheese ganache

Holiday gift? Quick and easy? Yes and yes. Or done and done! I know I've told you I've gotten a lot of emails asking me to please write up more quick & easy recipes. And lately I've been giving them out. I'm a proud to show you yet another one that happened as a matter of quick thinking. AND this is a fabulous holiday treat to give to friends, family, co-workers. My hubby brought these into work and they were gone in ONE hour. Crazy vultures! And I got an email from someone at hubbys' work saying how much she enjoyed them--I love that; that is exactly why I love to bake.

If any of you follow me on Twitter or Facebook you know I love to cruise the aisles of Trader Joe's with iphone in hand and snap up photos of the latest new items. I love Trader Joe's, I think they have good priced frozen meals, but are lacking on the fresh produce and breads. Their snacks, cookies, candies are pretty good and decently priced.
On a previous trip to TJ's I sampled their pumpkin bread and was blown away at how good it tasted; definitely didn't taste like it came from a box. So when I saw the new gingerbread mix I had to give them a go too. And yes, that is how the gingerbread cupcakes came about. Instead of baking them in a bread/loaf pan I made them into 12 cupcakes. They came out fabulous. I mean no one ever knew they were from a box--well until now. Next time you go try them. Let me know how you kicked them up. I kicked mine up by adding a white chocolate-cream cheese ganache. I just think white chocolate and gingerbread are a match made in heaven if the white chocolate has a bit of savory to it. You feeling me people? Are you with me? Good because you are going to LOVE these lil beauties.

gingerbread cupcakes with white chocolate-cream cheese ganache
print recipe

1 box of Trader Joe’s Gingerbread mix

Bake the cupcakes according to the package, but instead of using a pan use 12 cupcakes. Mine were done baking in about 17- 20 minutes. Let cool completely and start on the ganche.

White chocolate-cream cheese ganache
½ - ¾ cup of high quality white chocolate
Good splash of heavy cream
4 ounces of room temp cream cheese
Pinch of sea salt

In a saucepan, over very low heat, melt the white chocolate with the heavy cream. When the chocolate is just melted, add in the room temp cream cheese and start mixing. You will be mixing for a while to get it to a nice glossy, smooth texture. Add in the sea salt. Taste test.

When the Ganache is just about combined, take off the heat and finish mixing. Make sure your cupcakes are ready to go and be frosted as the white chocolate Ganache does NOT stay melted for long—it dries up fast.
Pour the Ganache over the cupcakes on a wire rack (or on wax paper).