Tag Archives: dessert

Death by Scotcharoo

Posted on November 11, 2011 | 7 Comments

I have an addiction.  And it’s bad.

The other day a girl from work brought in a pan of these babies.  It took all my self control and will power to not steal the entire pan and sit, wild eyed, in a corner of the store eating my weight in Scotcharoos.

I could have done it too.  And I wouldn’t have felt a teensy bit bad about it.

You see, I have this addiction to peanut butter…

If it’s around, I eat it.  In oatmeal, in desserts, on toast, on my fingers…  It really doesn’t matter.  Well, after I tried her Scotcharoos for the first time and tasted the sweet peanut butter mixed with crunchy cereal and chocolatey topping, I was hooked.  I begged and pleaded for the recipe (which she gave me in about 1.2 seconds) and decided today was the perfect time to make them.

Now, some of you out there are thinking, “Yeah?  What’s the big deal?  They’re Scotcharoos.  They are basically Rice Krispie Treats’ bad boy cousin.”  Well, until a few months ago, I had never had them.  I had no idea what I’d been missing…

Scotcharoos (from Kelloggs)

1 cup white sugar
1 cup light Karo syrup
1 cup peanut butter
6 cups Rice Krispie cereal
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips

Over medium heat, melt the sugar and karo syrup together until sugar dissolves and the mixture starts to boil.

Turn off the heat and stir in the peanut butter.

Add the cereal and mix well to combine.  Spread evenly in a greased 13×9 inch baking dish.

As the cook, enjoy the little bitties that cling to the spatula as your treat.  You’ve worked hard.  You deserve it.

Melt 1 cup of chocolate chips in the microwave.  To do this you want to heat in 30 second intervals, stirring in between each session.  Otherwise, your chocolate will not heat evenly and you could burn it which, let’s face it, is a sin.  Don’t do it.  To melt my chips, it took 1.5 minutes.

Once your chocolate chips are melted, add the butterscotch chips and stir to melt.  This process is referred to as tempering, which results in the chocolate hardening nicer.

After your chips are melted, spread over cereal mixture.

Let harden…if you can.  I could not wait and ended up with chocolate all over my fingers.  This is not a bad thing, my friends.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go overdose on my pan of peanut buttery goodness.

Ignore the wild eyes…they’ll go away eventually.

→ 7 Comments

Posted in Recipes

Tagged , , ,

Pumpkin Muffins

Posted on October 24, 2010 | 4 Comments

If you’re a food blogger, you may have noticed a common theme circulating throughout the blogosphere lately.  One word:  PUMPKIN!

I am not a huge fan of pumpkin.  I like it, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t look forward to pumpkin flavored everything like many of my blogger friends do.  My husband did ask me to make pumpkin bread this morning and, since I have two cans stashed away in my pantry, I gave in.

I do love a thick slice of pumpkin bread toasted up so it’s slightly crunchy and slathered with some Brummel and Brown.  The warmth of the flavors and the sweetness of the butter always reminds me of fall.  This morning, however, because my loaf pans are covered in rust and need to be pitched in an attempt at portion control, I made muffins instead of a loaf.

As the muffins sat cooling in their pans, I threw together a little cinnamon butter as well.  It was the perfect morning snack!

Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Butter
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil (would have done 1/2 oil 1/2 applesauce if I had had any)
2/3 cup water
3 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 350º and grease your muffin tins.  My batch made 21 muffins.  In one bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, sugar, and vanilla.  Combine thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, wisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.

Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture slowly.  Mix until just combined.  When all the flour has been incorporated, (in the words of Alton Brown) WALK AWAY.  JUST WALK AWAY! Yes, there will be lumps.  Yes, you will want to keep stirring to break some of them up.  DON’T DO IT!

Just grab a small ice cream scoop and scoop the mixture into the prepared muffin tins.

Pop them in the oven for 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

While your muffins are baking, let some butter come to room temperature (or grab a tub of Brummel and Brown, which mixes well even straight from the fridge).  Combine the butter with some cinnamon (the amount is up to you) until well mixed.

You could wait for the muffins to cool or do like I did:  grab one with your fingers mere minutes out of the oven and slather on some cinnamon butter.  The warm muffins will melt the butter and the combination tastes like dessert.

You could also whip up a batch of Jenna’s Brown Sugar Italian Buttercream to top said muffins for an even more devilish dessert.  The choice is yours.  But I know what I’d choose…

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Recipes

Tagged , , , ,

Puppy Chow

Posted on October 21, 2010 | 4 Comments

The other day I was at the grocery store trying to figure out what exactly I’d like to eat for breakfast.  My standard fare of oatmeal (overnight or otherwise) just wasn’t cutting it anymore.  I’m not sure if I got tired of oats or if pregnancy has something to do with it, but the thought of eating oatmeal makes me kind of sicky feeling.

So there I was, standing in the cereal aisle at Kroger, trying to pick out a cereal that sounded good and wasn’t horrible for me.  My eyes landed on Honey Nut Chex.  OK, so it’s not the best cereal out there, but it’s certainly not the worst!  I grabbed a box and continued on my way.

As I was finishing my grocery shopping, I started to think how great the honey nut Chex would be in puppy chow!  Here’s something you may not know about me:  one of my absolute favorite combinations on earth is chocolate and peanut butter.  I would bath in peanut butter and chocolate if I could.  OK, maybe not, but I could probably make myself sick by eating so much of it.

Puppy chow, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is cereal that is coated with a peanut butter/chocolate mixture and topped with powdered sugar.  Sounds fabulous, I know.  Here’s the recipe I used:

Puppy Chow
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

9 cups Chex cereal
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 regular sized Hershey bars
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

In a double boiler (a pan of water set to simmer with a glass bowl perched over it), melt your chocolate.  Make sure the water isn’t touching the bottom of the bowl.

Once your chocolate is melted, add in your peanut butter and stir to combine.

In a big bowl, combine the melted chocolate and peanut butter with the cereal.  Try to coat each piece.

Move the cereal to a zip top bag and dump on the powdered sugar.

Shake to coat.

I like to spread mine out on a cookie sheet just to knock off some of the excess sugar, but today I decided it would be fun to dump part of my treat on myself.

And the floor.

It still turned out fabulous although I would double the peanut butter next time.

Fun little tip:  if your niece comes over, who is already hyper mind you, this treat may not be the best snack to offer her.  She may start bouncing off the walls uncontrollably!  But then she leaves.  Hee hee hee.

Do you have any favorite childhood treats you still love as an adult?

→ 4 Comments

Posted in Recipes

Tagged , , , , ,