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).

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.   

Skinny ’n Quick Chocolate Oatmeal

This is one of my favorite weekday breakfasts to compensate for my weekend munchies. It’s nutricious, gooey, chocolaty and contains only 150 calories per serving!

Ingredients

25 g rolled oats
175 ml skimmed milk
½ tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
liquid sweetener to taste

Method

Put all the ingredients in a large bowl and microwave on medium/high power for about two minutes until it reaches a pudding-like consistency. I recommend keeping an eye on your oatmeal while it cooks, as it can boil over rather quickly (and trust me, the last thing you want to do in the morning is cleaning your microwave). Let sit for a few minutes before consuming.