Peanut Buttercups with Marshmallow Fluff

Most stores here in the Netherlands don’t carry peanut buttercups and thus I never ate one until some time earlier this year. Heck, I didn’t even had a liking for peanut butter at the time, I was mostly wondering what all the fuss was about. In hindsight I think the very first one I ate did me in for good. By now I know most stores in quite a few cities here that sell them and it took me quite a few tries to come up with a recipe that resembles the original most in my opinion. My boyfriend is a huge fan of marshmallow fluff so for this particular batch I added it to the mix. Feel free to leave it out if you prefer the original taste though.


Ingredients

For 12 regular sized muffin cups:

15 g finely ground biscuit crumbs
65 g peanut butter
75 g powdered sugar
18 g unsalted butter
200 g milk chocolate (Hersheys if you can get your hands on it)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
½ teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt

Optional: 100 g marshmallow fluff (about half a jar)


Method

Combine peanut butter, softened butter, powdered sugar, biscuit crumbs and vanilla in mixing bowl. Knead until thoroughly combined and add salt to taste (in my opinion you should add just a tiny bit more salt after the point where you think that you recreated the perfect Reeses saltyness, since the chocolate you will be adding later seems to weaken the salty taste a bit).

Prepare 12 cupcake liners in a muffin pan, don’t cut the sides yet.

Melt chocolate using double boiler method and stir in shortening until completely dissolved.

Drop about a teaspoon of melted chocolate in each cupcake liner and spread evenly across the bottom (use half of the chocolate or a little less, you’ll be needing the rest for the top layers). Place muffin pan in the refrigerator until chocolate is hardened, about 15 minutes.

Divide peanut butter mixture into 12 portions and flatten into chocolate filled cupcake liners, making sure that the peanut butter mixture doesn’t reach all the way to the sides.

Optional: scoop about a tablespoon of marshmallow fluff on top of peanut butter mixture in liners. Spread with the back of a spoon.

Re-melt leftover chocolate, again using double boiler method. Spoon the melted chocolate on top of the peanutbutter (/marshmallow fluff) and fill until the peanut butter(/marshmallow fluff) is covered.

Place muffin pan back in the fridge until peanut butter cups are fully hardened. Trim off the sides of the muffin liners for a more finished look to your peanut buttercups (or just devour them).

Candied cookies and Caramel Ice Cream

I admit that this is mostly the same recipe as the one I used for my crunchy macadamia ice cream, but this variation turned out really nice so I think it’s worth sharing anyway. It’s basically all my favorite  munchies combined and therefore probably horribly unhealthy. But then again, Ben & Jerry max out the number of munchies in their ice cream flavors all the time and the only thing they ever got from it was probably truckloads of money (or maybe they died at a very young age of being morbidly obese. I really don’t know actually. Maybe I should look it up some time. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t).

Ingredients

For candied cookies:

100 g of your favorite cookies (anything goes!)

¼ teaspoon baking soda

70 g granulated sugar

30 g unsalted butter 

2 tablespoons water

For caramel sauce:

210 g sugar

85 g butter

120 ml heavy whipping cream

For ice cream:

250 ml heavy whipping cream

250 ml whole milk

pinch of salt

75 g granulated sugar

4 large egg yolks

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Candied cookie chunks: Spread a piece of parchment paper on a large plate. Break cookies into medium sized chunks. Mix cookie chunks and baking soda together in a bowl. Heat sugar, water and butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves and butter melts. Increase heat to medium-high and boil until the mixture has a warm amber color while tilting and swirling the pan to make sure that the mixture is evenly heated. Add in the cookie chunks, stir quickly to incorporate and immediately pour the mixture onto the parchment paper, spreading it as much as possible (note: cookie chunks will probably appear soggy at this point. Don’t panic, they will magically regain crunchiness when cooling). Let cool completely, then chop into pieces of desired size.

Caramel sauce: Measure all ingredients before you start and make sure you have everything on hand. Heat sugar in a heavy bottomed saucepan on medium heat and stir with a wooden spoon. Stop stirring as soon as most of the sugar turned liquid (this is essential to prevent your sugar from crystallizing). Gently tilt and swirl the pan to make sure that sugar is evenly heated and wait until all sugar is completely dissolved and the liquid is warm amber in color. Immediately add the butter to the pan and whisk until the butter has melted. Take the pan off the heat, wait a few seconds, slowly add the cream to the pan and whisk to incorporate. Let cool to room temperature in pan, then transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until very cold. 

Ice cream: heat cream, milk and salt in a large heavy bottomed saucepan, don’t let it boil. Put the egg yolks and sugar in a medium bowl and whisk for a couple of minutes until fluffy and pale. Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture, then return mixture to same saucepan. Heat custard mixture over low-medium heat (be careful not to boil) until custard starts to thicken and leaves path on back of spoon when a finger is drawn across. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. Refrigerate until very cold.

Pour cold custard into ice cream maker and process according to manufactures’ instructions. Add caramel sauce during the last 5 minutes of processing (alternatively, if you want caramel swirls in your ice cream, add only half of the caramel sauce at this point). When done processing stir in candied cookie chunks. Transfer mixture to container and freeze until firm (for caramel swirls: alternate between scoops of ice cream mixture and scoops of caramel sauce when transferring to container). 

Note:  best to be consumed within 1-2 days, as praline around cookie chunks seems to slowly dissolve over time. 

Biscoff Ice Cream With Chocolate Biscoff Truffles

I love biscoff spread, but unfortunately I don’t really like bread so I figured this called for another crazy ice cream flavor. Plain biscoff ice cream would probably be nice, but again; I love chunks of something in my ice cream, so I made the mini biscoff truffles. 

Ingredients

For biscoff truffles:
2 tablespoons biscoff spread (I used crunchy)
50 g milk chocolate (or dark, if you prefer)

For ice cream:
350 ml whole milk
250 ml heavy whipping cream 
4 egg yolks
1 vanilla pod
100 g sugar
5 tablespoons biscoff spread (I used crunchy) 

Method
Biscoff truffles: Put jar of biscoff spread in the freezer for half an hour to an hour (makes it a little easier to handle, although it’s probably still going to stick to your fingers to some degree). Form little ⅓ inch balls and put on parchment paper (I got about 25). Carefully store biscoff balls in freezer for at least an hour.

Melt chocolate using double boiler method, making sure to heat chocolate as little as possible. Coat frozen biscoff balls with molten chocolate and put on clean sheet of parchment paper. Store in the freezer until chocolate is fully hardened.

Ice cream: Split vanilla pod lengthwise. Heat vanillapod with cream and milk in a large heavy bottomed saucepan, don’t let it boil. Remove vanilla pod when mixture is heated. Put egg yolks and sugar in a medium sized bowl and whisk until mixture is fluffy and pale. Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture, then return mixture to same saucepan. Heat custard mixture over low-medium heat (be careful not to boil) until custard starts to thicken and leaves path on back of spoon when a finger is drawn across. Refrigerate until very cold. 

Pour cold custard into ice cream maker and process according to manufactures’ instructions. Add biscoff spread during the last 5 minutes of churning. When done processing carefully stir in biscoff truffles. Transfer mixture to container and freeze until firm.   

Real Cake Batter Ice Cream

Being a great fan of crazy ice cream flavors I was instantly overjoyed when I discovered a recipe for cake batter ice cream. I obtained a box of Ducan Hynes cake mix at an American food store and I tried the recipe. Only to find out that the resulting ice cream tasted exáctly like the super cheapo brand of vanilla ice cream from my local supermarket. Major disappointment there. Now there is of course a small chance that most Americans would go wild about my local supermarkets cheapo ice cream, but I tend to believe that cake batter ice cream made with cake mix just doesn’t really taste like cake batter. This recipe might be slightly unhealthier than the cake mix based ice cream recipes, but it tastes exactly like pound cake batter, yum!

Warning: This ice cream contains raw eggs (if you are however, like me, not afraid of eating spoons full of cake batter when making cake, you might as well eat this ice cream. Alternatively, you can leave out the egg whites, but I found they added to the flavor)

Ingredients

100 g butter
100 g sugar
100 g flour
2 eggs
150 ml whole milk
150 ml heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

Soften butter in microwave. Put in large bowl and whisk until creamy. Whisk in sugar, then add eggs to mixture. Add (sifted) flour a little bit at a time and whisk until smooth. Add milk, whipping cream and vanilla extract, whisk again until just incorporated. Refrigerate until very cold.

When chilled, transfer mixture into ice cream maker and process according to manufactures’ instructions. Serve with a slice of freshly baked cake for the ultimate sinfully blissful cake experience.

Italian Style Cauliflower

The supermarket holds quite a few sauces and spices to jazz up your cauliflower (some are even quite nice for those days when you don’t feel like put any extra effort into your dinner) but nothing beats an old family recipe in my opinion. My mom used to cook this for me when I was a kid and I gratefully copy her recipe every now and then now I live on my own.

Ingredients

1 cauliflower head
1 can of diced tomatoes
2-3 garlic gloves
50 g grated parmesan cheese
10 g flat parsley leafs
1 tablespoon oil

Method

Chop cauliflower in medium sized pieces and cook until almost done (‘al dente’). Heat oil in a large skillet and bake cauliflower for a couple of minutes. Stir in diced tomatoes, minced garlic and chopped parsley leafs and add grated parmesan cheese on top. Put lid on pan, turn down heat and let simmer until cheese melts.  

White Chocolate and Cream Cheese Ice Cream With Crispy White Chocolate Clusters

I first came across the combination of white chocolate and cornflakes in a restaurant where they served white chocolate and cornflakes bark with their grand dessert. At first the combination didn’t seem all that appealing to me but I immediately changed my mind upon trying it. Last week my boyfriend was in favor of making white chocolate ice cream but since I can’t seem to have my ice cream without chunks of some kind I came up with the white chocolate clusters, which turned out great.

The original recipe I used for the ice cream called for 200 g of cream cheese but I found that to be rather nauseating in just a few scoops so I cut down on the cream cheese. If you’re willing to take the risk however, you can use 200g of cream cheese and cut both the milk and the heavy whipping cream down to 100 ml. 

Ingredients

For the ice cream:
125 ml whole milk
125 ml heavy whipping cream
100 g caster sugar
4 large egg yolks
125 g cream cheese
100 g white chocolate
1 vanilla pod

For the chocolate clusters:100 g white chocolate
20 g Frosties (frosted flakes)

Method

Ice cream: Split vanilla pod lengthwise. Heat vanillapod with cream and milk in a large heavy bottomed saucepan, don’t let it boil. Remove vanilla pod when mixture is heated. Put egg yolks and sugar in a medium sized bowl and whisk until mixture is fluffy and pale. Gradually whisk hot cream mixture into yolk mixture, then return mixture to same saucepan. Heat custard mixture over low-medium heat (be careful not to boil) until custard starts to thicken and leaves path on back of spoon when a finger is drawn across. Break white chocolate into pieces and put in a medium bowl. Pour custard mixture over white chocolate and let stand for a minute, then whisk together until smooth. Add cream cheese and whisk again until mixture is smooth. Refrigerate until very cold. 

Chocolate clusters: Crumble Frosties into small pieces (or, if you’re slightly lazy like me: put them in a sandwichbag and use a rolling pin). Melt white chocolate in heat proof medium sized bowl using double boiler method. Remove bowl from heat and quickly stir in crumbled Frosties. Pour mixture onto parchment paper, spreading it as thin as possible. Refrigerate until chocolate is fully hardened, then chop into chunks of desired size.

When chilled, transfer custard into ice cream maker and process according to manufactures’ instructions. When done processing stir in chocolate chunks. Transfer mixture to container and freeze until firm.  

Classic Green Pesto Sauce

Not a very original recipe this one, but definitely one of my all-time favorites. I usually keep some of this pesto sauce in my freezer to use in a quick savoury pasta dish when I’m low on time (or cooking motivation).

If you’re feeling creative you can always experiment with different kinds of greens and/or nuts (I’ve tried subtituting pine nuts and basil for pistachios and rocket myself, which turned out very nice).

Ingredients

35 g fresh basil leaves

1 garlic clove

20 g pine nuts

50 g grated parmesan

3-4 tablespoons olive oil extra vergine
salt to taste (optional)

Method

Process basil leaves, pine nuts, parmesan and garlic in food processor until finely ground (stopping half way to scrape down sides if necessary).

Add oil one tablespoon at a time until pesto reaches desired consistency.

Can be stored for about 5 days in the fridge or longer in the freezer.