Peanut Butter Cupcakes Three Ways

Hey there.

Are you sick and tired of having only one way to enjoy your peanut butter cupcakes?

Are you tossing and turning night after night, wrestling with the idea of settling down with just one peanut butter cupcake topping?

Are you pretty sure peanut butter cupcakes know you're not a hit it and quit it type of person but sometimes your eyes wander and then your mouth wanders but it's okay baby, you're still the peanut butter cupcake for me but sometimes a grown adult just has these urges that are totally, totally normal and happen to everyone and if God wanted us to only enjoy one type of peanut butter cupcake for the rest of our lives, he wouldn't have given us taste buds?

Stop! You don't have to settle for another sleepless night!

Now you can live the good life with Mini Peanut Butter Cupcakes Three Ways!

Because you deserve it.  And cupcakenogomy is dead.

So that was weird, huh? I mean, all I've had for dinner tonight is cupcakes, 1/2 cup of edamame, and a yogurt and while that may seem like the perfect meal - it very much is the perfect meal and you were right for thinking that. My hands may be shaking? I can't imagine any correlation. Is this the danger of eating around? I should have used protection.

Let's get on with the deets...

Cupcake Ingredients

1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (use soy based protein powder to keep it vegan)

1/2 cup oat flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup + 1 tbls crunchy peanut butter

18 packets Truvia

2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or any variation)

Optional: a couple chocolate chips for plopping in the middle of the cupcakes before baking

Do as I say

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a mini cupcake pan with some mini liners. This recipe makes three and a half dozen mini cupcakes. Get ready to be overwhelmed. 

In a medium bowl, whisk the protein powder, oat flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside.

Beat the peanut butter with the truvia with an electric mixer until well blended. Add the applesauce and beat it like Chris Brown just caught it with another cupcake. (Too soon? Too nonsensical?) Mix in the vanilla. Mix in some of the dry mixture followed by some of the milk and continue alternating, finishing with the dry ingredients. Mix until fully incorporated.

Fill your mini cupcakes about 2/3 of the way full (here's where you can add some chocolate chips in the middle if you want) and pop in the oven for 12 minutes. Take out, let cool, repeat a half a million times.

Now let's get on with the cupcake swinging...

Option 1: Peanut Butter and Jelly

Ingredients

4 tbls vegan butter

3/4 cup confectioners sugar (I didn't have enough - don't make my mistakes.)

A splash of unsweetened vanilla almond milk

2 tbls of your jam of choice...but always choose red fig jam. No pressure.

Get on with it

Using an electric mixture, beat the vegan butter on high for a bit. Then add the confectioners sugar and beat until it incorporates. Beat harder and faster (teehee) to fluff it up (teeeeeheeeee). Add the splash of milk and the jam. Beat beat beat beat until you're happy with it. Spread it on the cupcakes. Devour the cupcakes.

Option 2: The Jackson Pollock

Ingredients

1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (I had a lot of it, okay?)

2 tbls vegan butter

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Take the lazy way out

Get the butter and milk in a bowl together. Pop it in the microwave for a minute. Mix it. Add the chocolate chips and stir until smooth. Take your spoon and flick the ganache across the cupcake top like a masterful artist who's probably a little lot drunk hammered. Enjoy your delicate work of art.

Option 3: Chocolate Smothered Peanut Butter

Using the same ingredients as above

Dip your mini cupcakes top down into the bowl of ganache. Swirl a bit and set it on a cooling rack to set. Refrigerate to harden. Make sure to get chocolate all over your face and hands and face some more when you lose all self control and eat these like a savage animal. Yum!

So there you go. Three different options for your indecisive needs. And if you need more than three, you're just a sick fuck.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 These cupcakes are so very good. Each option is a winner. And my love for bite-sized goodies is undeniable. If anything, the vegan substitutions in the batter elevate the taste and consistency. The cake itself is perfectly peanut buttery and the little crunches of peanuts are stupid good. Creamy peanut butter is for pussies and WonderBread. And you don't look like WonderBread to me...

EASE: 4/5 Vegan recipes are just oddly easy, if you ask me. Everything is so...soft. And when there's nothing in the batter that can cause you crippling stomach cramps if eaten in its raw form, it's also incredibly easy to taste as you go and adjust to your liking. And I like to pretend that it's healthier too. It's like taking a completely non-violent action to a bird with two stones! I think!

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 5/5 I'm just going to burn it down and start fresh. I think I have peanut butter and/or jam in my hair. I'll just shave my head. It's fine. I want to move on from this forever.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? The dog woofed at me at one point because he realized it was 1am and I hadn't taken him out yet. Then I was all like, "Frank, shut the front door." And that confused him enough to convince him to go back to bed. (I'm pretty up to speed with my dog's mental capacity.) I think he's hibernating.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 4/5 If I've said it a million times, I will now say it a million and one times: vegan baking earns you street cred. Sure, it's a street that's gentrifying more and more with each passing second but it's also a street. And you cannot get cred anywhere else. Also, I hear they just opened up a new coffee house that serves one no-frills-back-to-basics brew in hand thrown mugs from a Polish grandmother's open-air studio that used to be a whorehouse. It's also fair-trade. It's pretty legit.

Mini Cupcake Nutrition Facts

per Peanut Butter Cupcake

32 calories / 3g carbs / 2g fat / 2g protein / 0g fiber / 1g sugar

per Peanut Butter and Jelly Mini Cupcake (estimation based on the recipe making enough for 20 or so servings)

72 calories / 8g carbs / 4g fat / 2g protein / 0g fiber / 6g sugar

per Chocolate Smother Peanut Butter Cupcake (estimation based on the recipe making a shit ton of ganache - I guessed 60 cupcake tops worth)

45 calories / 4g carbs / 3g fat / 2g protein / 0g fiber / 2g sugar

Post-Workout Cookie Sandwiches Revisited

I gave my I'm-Real-Beat-From-Running-Someone-Get-This-Girl-A-Cookie-Sandwich recipe a moderate facelift yesterday. It's the same basic idea, just a few ingredient replacement. So here goes it!

Ingredients

1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (use a soy-based powder for vegan)

1/3 cup oat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4oz fresh ground almond butter

18 packets Truvia

1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbls instant espresso powder

1 1/2 cups oats

1/2 cup mini dark chocolate chips

Do These Things Now

Whisk your protein powder, oat flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, "cream" the almond butter, applesauce and truvia til smooth. Add the tsp of vanilla and the espresso powder. Mix some more. Add the dry ingredient mixture a half a cup at a time. It should seem pretty dry. If it seems too dry, add a bit more applesauce. Add the vanilla and espresso powder. Smoooooth. Fold in the oats and the chocolate chips.

Divide the dough in half. Take one half and plop it down on some wax paper. Wrap it up like a tootsie roll and roll it out into a log. It should be about an inch and half or so in diameter. Wrap tightly in the wax paper and let cool in the fridge for 4-6 hours. Repeat with remaining half of dough.

4-6 hours/one reading of The Hunger Games later...

Preheat the oven to 350. Line some cookie sheets with parchment paper. Take your doughy logs out of the fridge. Slice the logs into thinnish cookie disks no bigger than a half an inch wide. If they crack a bit, you can always reform them with a little of the fallen off dough. Press the disks down onto the cookie sheets, making them just a tad slimmer and peanut butter spreading friendlier. Add fallen apart dough as needed. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove and cool for a minute or 2 on the sheets, then transfer to cooling racks.

Assembly!

This is pretty straightforward. If it isn't, I'm afraid of how you got this far and no, this is not a pie recipe. Take one cookie. Spread a tablespoon of your favorite chunky peanut butter on the smooth bottom side. Top with another cookie's smooth bottom side. Giggle about "smooth bottom sides."

Nutrition Facts

Per cookie 

50 calories / 6g carbs / 3g fat / 2g protein / 1g fiber / 0g sugar

(based off the recipe making the 42 cookies I made)

Per cookie sandwich with a tablespoon of Maranatha No Stir Crunchy Peanut Butter

190 calories / 16g carbs / 14g fat / 8g protein / 3g fiber / 3g sugar

Miniature Chocolate Cheesecakes

It's safe to say that everything is better in miniature form. (I'm sorry, have you seen miniature ponies?) I can think of literally tens of other things that follow suit. Bonsai trees. Shrunken heads. Teacup anythings. My apartment. Chocolate Cheesecake.

Shrunken Teacup Studio Apartment Chocolate Cheesecake slices. Cuuuute.
(Bonsai.)

Six things. I can think of six things that are better in miniature form. See? Everything.

Before we go on and on and on and on (my God, it's already starting) about Miniature Chocolate Cheesecakes, let's take a closer look at thing #5: my apartment. Bitch you be mad tiny. Like I've seen a lot kitchen sinks (I think?) but rarely have I seen one that, with proper aim, you can throw shit in ala office trashcan basketball hoops (the one exception to the miniature rule - pretty sure only assholes have those) while lying comfortably in your bed. Does that make sense? I don't care. My apartment is like miniature pony of apartments. And I have loved it for 11 months.

So as the lease on my tiny studio apartment winds down, it seems only fitting to make something miniature. In honor of my tiny studio apartment and all things miniature (I listed them all above, if you forgot what they were. That's the complete list. Also? You should be kinda worried that you couldn't remember that list. It was only a handful of sentences ago. It's probably a tumor.) I present some Miniature Chocolate Cheesecakes. Oh and they'll keep you tiny too because who wants giant people when miniature is so much better? SEVEN! Seven things! I did it!

Recipe adapted from Women's Health because I am crazier than Women's Health. And don't you forget it!

Makes 14ish standard sized cupcakes

Ingredients
4 tbl wheat germ
2 8oz packages of fat free cream cheese*
8 oz very firm tofu, drained
24 packets Truvia
1 egg
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 unsweetened cocoa powder
8 oz fat free sour cream*
Some of this red fig jam I'm obsessed with

*(Use these if you're also crazy. Use reduced fat for it to taste better.)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. You can use terribly adorable cupcake liners or not. The not version turned out prettier but the liner was easier to handle. Either way, use some cooking spray to lightly coat the insides on the liners/pan. Dust the bottoms with some wheat germ for your crumb base. Toss that pan in your freezer.

Blend the cream cheese, tofu, and sugar (substitute) in a food processor. Add egg, egg whites, and vanilla. Process some more. Add the cocoa powder and sour cream. Process!

"Process me like one of your French girls."

Take your pan out of the freezer and load them up with cheesecake batter. Put them in the oven for like 20ish minutes or until they look done. That's helpful, right? Top with that jam I love.

Is that red fig jam on your mini slice of mini cheesecake?
BECAUSE IT LOOKS A LOT LIKE HEAVEN. 

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 2.99/5 (Updated: they taste significantly better after a few hours of refrigeration.) So okay, I went a little too *crazy with the fat free-ing. One or both of the creamy white parts needs to be at just reduced fat. But they still taste good and I would put red fig jam on everything I eat if I could. And since I live alone, I can. And I do.


EASE: 5/5 The only way this could possibly be easier would be if my food processor didn't have the motor of a chainsaw and as such, wouldn't leave my ears ringing for hours. It hurts.


FILTH OF KITCHEN: 1.5/5 Hey! Way to go Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes! You are almost entirely contained to 2 washable things! MINIATURES DO IT BETTER. Amiright?


DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? If the dog doesn't go back to eating the dough when I move to my new apartment, the dog is going to have to start paying rent. The fuck happened to my living breathing vacuum/Swiffer Wet Jet all-in-one?


IMPRESS-O-METER: 4.5/5 Oh, haven't you heard? Miniature things are the best things.

Nutritional facts per mini cake:
76 calories / 13g carbs / 2g fat / 8g protein / 1g fiber / 2g sugar

Passover Torte

Just a quick little snippet on this Passover dessert I made from the incredible, wonderful, Smitten Kitchen. That lady over there is amazing, folks. Clearly, I swapped out the copious amounts of sugar for Truvia, because I'm insane*. I'm sure this affected my macaroon layers negatively in appearance, but the taste was absolutely almond-y and fantastic in every way.

I used her suggestion of orange extract in the chocolate icing - ohmygodyes. My macaroon layers were not as meringue-y as I think they should have been (my peaks didn't get so stiff, I don't think...I blame the Truvia) and I couldn't really trim them too much without them totally crumbling to pieces...hence the uneven-ness. But, despite also not having quite enough icing and running out of decorative almond slices (the shame of it all!), it tasted so, so, so good. So good. But this amount of cake may last me the rest of my life. Sigh. I'll just have to learn to live with it.

There's no real story here. My bad. Just a big old happy Passover to you all. Now go eat some flourless cake.


*insane people also calculate nutrition facts per 1/2" slice of chocolate tortes. I know this first hand. 
193 cals / 24g carbs / 12g fat / 5g protein / 2g fiber / 14g sugar

You Eat Post-Workout Snacks Like A Girl

Vegan Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches. (whew.)

I have some pretty silly fears. Elevator doors closing on me. Falling down escalators. Falling up stairs. Falling on my face. (There is something wrong with my balance? There is something wrong with my balance.)

But those are the normal socially accepted  ones I typically admit. I also have food fears that I keep somewhat to myself. Oh who am I kidding, I don't keep anything to myself. You look horrible today, by the way. But yeah. Food fears. Fears makes it sound a little too wacky, I think. We'll call them food aversions. Eek. These include, but are not limited to, the following: cheese, bread, cereal, butter, oil, meat of all kinds, sugar. They come and go (eggs and milk used to be there too, so I'm open to modifying my psychosis) for various nonsensical reasons. So I've been adjusting my foods to be less scary, more approachable, friendlier, faster, stronger, better, cuter, more charming. Wait what? No, no. All that's perfect. And true.

It's common knowledge that I like my cookie doughs to look as
much like bowel movements as possible.

But where I struggle the most is carbs. Specifically post-workout carbs. And to make it worse, I've been falling in love with running these days. And as we're getting pretty hot and heavy, it's becoming readily apparent to me that I need to eat some damn carbs after those runs. For the sake of having enough energy to run again. But I don't want to eat a tuna sandwich everyday. Orrrr ever.

Is that oatmeal in there or little glimmers of sunshine?
(It's oatmeal.)

So I'm going to eat my post-workout snacks like a girl. Mostly because that is clearly the only way I know how. They're going to be Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Cookie Peanut Butter Sandwiches. And they are going to be life-altering.

Ok. They are going be incredibly yummy. And a little funny looking. Oh and they're going to be - relatively - good for you. And vegan. Because why the fuck not, amiright?

Cute in that ugly you-must-have-come-from-turdy-batter way.
You know?

Adapted from this recipe.  Here's how...

Assemble these things:
3/4  cup of oat flour
1/4  cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4  tsp salt
1/2  tsp baking soda
6  tbls vegan buttery flavor sticks
2  tbls unsweetened applesauce
18  packets of Truvia
2  oz cooled espresso
1 1/2  tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2  cups of oats
1/2  cup of chocolate chips
wax paper and parchment paper

Do these things to those things:

1. Whisk first 4 dry ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside to let it think about what it did.
2. Cream the "butter" and applesauce with the "sugar" in a mixer. Make air quotes.
3. Add the espresso and vanilla. Is it smoothish? Let me introduce you to step 4...
4. Nice to finally meet you. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips with a spoon of sorts.
5. Divide the dough in half. Place the halves in their own wax papers. Roll the doughs into 2 log (you-know-what) shapes, about 2" in diameter. Wrap up and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Come back. Preheat the oven to 350. Parchment paper your cookie sheets.

1. Slice the logs into 1/2" wide cookies. I got about 3 dozen cookies out of this. The original recipe claims 48. I call bullshit on this.
2. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the tops look a bit dry.
3. Remove. Cool in sheets for a few minutes. Cool on cookie racks for many more minutes.
4. Assemble two cookies with a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter.
5. LOOK WHAT I'VE CREATED. I HAVE MADE PERFECT POST-RUN SNACK!

Nutritional Info Per Cookie
56 calories / 8g carbs / 3g fat / 1g protein / 1g fiber / 2g sugar


Nutritional Info Per Sandwich 
202 calories / 19g carbs / 15g fat / 6g protein / 3g fiber / 6g sugar

This beats a tuna sandwich 99% of time.
Dolphin meat wins 1% of the time.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 TASTES SO GOOD IN MY SWEATY RUNNER MOUTH. It also tastes good in my regular mouth. These would also probably taste good in a shoe.

EASE: 4/5 I made the dough on my lunch break today, but only after stopping at the grocery, eating some lunch, and some general fucking around. The hardest part was cutting the turd roll. And that was easy as Sunday morning. Or Wednesday lunch break.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 3/5 This is hard because my kitchen is a pigsty to begin with. As is the area by my kitchen (known from here on out as The Entirety of the Rest of My Studio Apartment) where I decided I didn't feel like folding my laundry yet. Oh me. I didn't add too much extra mess, however. Just a lot.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? STOP REMINDING ME THAT MY DOG IS AFRAID OF MY KITCHEN ALREADY.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 2.5/5 Yeah these guys are ugly. That's for certain. -2 points. But they are Vegan (+1), Sandwich Cookies (+1), and made entirely from my heart (+.5). And then -1 for that last comment. And add another +1 for healthy-ness. Have we carried any ones yet? Perfect.

Banana Chocolate Cream Whoopie Pies

I thought I'd open this post with something I like to call: Show the Terrifying End Result of the Story in Order to Lure in the Audience. I'm a big time Hollywood producer now. NBD.

See what you've got here is fucking horrifying. It's carnage. It's utter destruction. But I don't know if you see what I did there...See I showed you a little banana cream pie beacon of hope too. I was worried you didn't see that. What I did there. Just...stay with me. I swear it's worth it. And if it isn't, you got a tour of my kitchen for your trouble. IT'S SO ROOMY.

I'm the first one in the world to say this so take a seat. I have really fantastic ideas in the shower. Sure, they're typically overshadowed by the OMIGODMYHEADISBLEEDING moment when I forget that's just red hair dye going down the drain, not my brains. (It might be my brains though too?) But if an idea can get past that hurdle, it's a keeper.

And so, I offer you The Banana Chocolate Cream Whoopie Pie. Courtesy my thought process when I'm nakey. 

Teehee.

I've been trying for 3-5 minutes to figure out how to properly describe these little goodies. Nothing's quite right but I think I'm close.

HOLY FUCK.

I mean, wow. Wow wow wow. But more of that later.

First things first, I prepared my browser for the evening. I set my bookmarks to Full Throttle. I'm in it to win or something.

HOW BOUT THAT BIGGEST LOSER FINALE?!?! AMIRIGHT!

Then I made something that looked remarkably like a turd.

You should be on your way out, not in.

Part of my stroke of genius was to make a double chocolate chip banana cookie for the whoopie pie. This was a mistake. Don't do this. They don't whoopie pie very well. Stick with your everyday banana chocolate chip cookie.

Hey! You! You don't belong there!
I can't eat you when you're there!

While the much more delicious banana chocolate chip cookies were baking, I got started on the custard. This is crucial to my whoopie pie cause. Because a banana chocolate cream pie without custard is like that horrible bitch in high school without her good looks: some bananas in some crusty shit that will probably wind up pregnant with a bastard child 1-3 months after graduation.

Much like the man in the moon,
there is usually a dinosaur in the custard.

Then came assembly time.

What you've got here is your typical Molly Banana Chocolate Cream Whoopie Pie set up. See, you've got one side being all vanilla custard-ed up with the world's thinnest slice of banana nestled inside like a little tiny banana present. Then you've have the other side, see, slathered in chocolate cream. What happens next will simply blow your mind.

Oh I'm sorry. I should have said something.
THIS JUST HAPPENED.

And so we've made our way back to the beginning. The filthy, filthy beginning. I HOPE YOU SEE WHAT I CLEARLY DID THERE.

Fun side note: I weighed myself consistently during this endeavor because I live alone and my scale is 12 footsteps from my oven so I'm allowed to do these things. I gained a pound and half from beginning to end. Sure, I also drank 20oz of Diet Dr. Pepper but that's the amount of Diet Dr. Pepper that could be inside my body at any given moment. My scale has adjusted.

You makea my dreams come true.
Ooo wooo. Oo oo.

Here's the recipe, if you're lady enough to try it.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 I can't reiterate this nearly enough. Holy fuck. I ate the shit out of one of these whoopie pies. And I don't even like whoopie pies. Hell, I don't even like eating all that much. I would have eaten all of them, but I think I'm having a heart attack?

EASE: 3/5 These weren't hard to make, just kitchen consuming. What with the mixing and the custarding and the assembling and sometimes I wish I had an underpaid, under appreciated, overworked helper monkey to do my biddings. All I have is a stupid dog. I'm going to go kick around some dirt while staring at my shoes now. 

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 10/5 May I direct your attention to the aforementioned video documentation of said filth? I might as well set fire to my apartment. I will never be clean.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: I don't understand what is up with my dog. Half the time I was making these, he was "stuck" in the closet whimpering slightly. It sounds cruel of me to not help him and to put quotation marks around his apparent situation but he wasn't stuck. The door of the closet was open. That's how he got in in the first place. He just couldn't figure out how to get out. I don't know what else to say. The other half of the time, I was pretending he was invisible. 

IMPRESS-O-METER: 5/5 I mean, I had this idea in the shower, you know? Who thinks about baked goods in the shower? Who thinks about anything other than "can I get by without shaving my legs today" in the shower? Who has the time! I do. Plus, I put a real pie into a fake cookie pie. I win.

Vegan Chocolate Salty Peanut Butter Balls

Before you read any further, I'd like to tell you something really, really important. I've been lauding the delightfulness of my vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls for literally tens of minutes. I don't know if you think (you probably don't, amateur) but tens of minutes is SO MANY minutes to express love for vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls. Especially aloud. Espcially to your mother. Especially to your extremely judgmental kitchen cabinets.

When will I live up to your standards?!

Anyways, I know Chef was the original purveyor of chocolate salty balls and I know the addition of "peanut butter" to "chocolate salty balls" makes you immediately think "creamy venereal disease" (no? how about now? that's what I thought. yummzville.) but that's just absurd. Just about everything in the world can and will benefit from the addition of peanut butter.

Example: Shampoo? Work a dollop of PB into your locks, neither wash no rinse, and voila! your hair is a tasty snack for mid shower hunger pangs. (You're allowed to called them "hunger bangs" if you're really clever.)

Example: Feeling chilly? Nothing says "boy am I comfy cozy" like a thin (or thick) layer of PB under your clothes. It also says "I'm friends with both bees and people who walk around with celery stalks and raisins!" but who couldn't use more friends? Amiright?

Those examples were exhausting. Less exhausting? These vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls. They took about 20 minutes or so to make, including bake time. I've had eybrow waxing appointments take longer than that. And these balls makes you cry less too! (This whole post is one giant that's-what-she-said joke. Sigh. Such is life.)

"Hey baby, I wonder if you can fit all of me in your mouth?" - Vegan Chocolate Salty Peanut Butter Ball 2011 Predator of the Year

Oh yeah. Here's some of the nitty gritty. This recipe came from my new vegan baking cookbook, The 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes: Amazing Cookies, Cakes, Muffins, Pies, Brownies, and Breads by Kris Holecheck. Although completely void of pictures, it's a pretty lovely little cookbook. Although the snickerdoodle recipe is more like a snickerdoody recipe if you catch my drift. (It's like poop.)

I'd like one of those hot stone massages but with
Vegan Chocolate Salty Peanut Butter Balls.
Everywhere.

RATE ME!

TASTE: 5/5 - The salty balls can do no wrong.
EASE: 5/5 - My dog could make these cookies if he wasn't such a gluttonous tramp who had no sense of self control. But I'm also willing to say a life size cardboard cutout picture of my dog could also manage this recipe. If the cardboard Frank wanted it bad enough.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 1/5 - My cleanup process was included in my 20ish minute questimate of total time spent in the kitchen. No egg mess (thanks vegans!), no melting chocolate (thanks society!), and my peanut butter wasn't even terribly sticky (thanks advances in Peter Pan peanut butter air whipping technology!). My goodness. This recipe is starting to look dangerously perfect.
DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH: The dog was too busy trying to eat the cat. That boy needs to get his priorities straight.
IMPRESS-O-METER: 3/5 - See, I have this dilemma. I want to make a balls joke here so bad. So so bad. What if you just lolz as you would lolz had I told a really great balls deep joke involving my vegan chocolate salty peanut butter balls right here without me having to make a balls deep joke? Because if I make an honest to goodness balls deep joke here, I'll have to explain the term "balls deep" to my mom. Or I want have to. Honestly, I'm not sure which would be worse.

Do you see what I did here?
It's a face!

Chocolate Eclairs

These are the things I know about Chocolate Eclairs: one of my brothers likes them, they are messy, they are served chilled, and the custard reminds me of what I believe liposuctioned fat looks like (my only knowledge of what liposuctioned fat looks like comes from the movie BASEketball - so I think it's a pretty accurate image). Especially when it squeezes out the butthole of the eclair with the first bite. And it always does.

So I've never been the biggest fan of Chocolate Eclairs. There, I said it. Close your dramatically dropped jaws. I can already feel a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I've been carrying around that baggage since childhood. But since I don't really like eating things after I've baked them anyways, I didn't see a problem. Other people like Eclairs. Plus, there's always the possibility that I'd like them more after making them...

RECIPE TIME!! I found my recipe at foodnetwork.com - duhhz - and you can find it right here. Follow along, take notes, visualize pure fat, and get your custard game face on. People are watching, you know. (Just me. I'm watching you. Right now. ps - you're cute in an eclair sort of way.)

This recipe has 4 different parts (recipe duration: one lifetime) which means I had 4 totally unique opportunities to seriously do things wrong. Call me opportunistic. Seriously. I hate my other nicknames. Plus I reach for the stars, kid.

First up was the filling recipe. This involved boiling milk. Opportunity #1!!

I have a thing for burning the life out of milk. I stop paying attention and BOOM brown milk crust on the bottom of the saucepan. Then there's the heavy sigh that always follows, the downward glance at my kitchen floor, and the agonizing saucepan sponge scraping that I (my mother) must endure.

Well, I have good news mom, no burnt milk! I know, I know, three cheers for Molly. A hero's welcome, I'm sure, is in store for me where ever I go. But seriously, I was excited. Even though the not burnt milk still looked like this:

vanilla bean I love you, but you're bringing my warm milk down

I soldiered on because vanilla bean wasn't going to make me cry any more tears that's what I'm most awesome at. Next up was whipping the egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, and warm milk and vanilla bean mixture together until they were light and fluffy and fearful of my awe-inspiring wrath. Done and done!

More stuff happened and once I was all done stirring and cooling I put Jabba the Hutt the custard filling (there is a striking resemblance, right? I was worried the custard might force me to be its slave girl any second) in the fridge to cool for a couple hours. Mostly for my own safety.

next time, I wanna make something that resembles a Wookie

On to round two! The pastry recipe!

I guess since the custard is so painfully sweet, the pastry must be painfully not sweet. And painfully not sweet it is. Quote of the evening from my mother upon tasting the batter: "Ew." I mean, I wouldn't go quite that far. Granted she thought she was sampling the custard and was maybe just half-surprised - but still. Ew was a little harsh. It's just pastry dough for the sake of pastry dough. And it only tastes a little bit like warm human flesh. (honest.)

This part of the recipe was my favorite part for this reason:

"Using a pastry bag fitted with a large plain tip, pipe fat lengths of dough (about the size and shape of a jumbo hot dog) onto the lined baking sheet..."

Gale Gand, creator of this recipe, I'm transferring my mother's earlier "ew" to your yuckcount. (get it? like a bank? hm?) Seriously, girl, that's a terrible idea. Everyone knows that the only dessert jumbo hot dogs worth their weight in inappropriate-food-reference-gold are the solid chocolate ones that sit in marshmallow buns. Get with the times, Gale Gand, and one more time: Ew.

Side Note: I am terrible at making fat lengths of dough in the size and shape of a jumbo hot dog. Maybe it's because I didn't have an appropriate pastry bag. Maybe it's out of principle.

I'll never be a street pastry jumbo hot dog vendor

Off to the oven went these semi-phallic, freshly coated with their recipe part three egg wash shine.

Hey - so now's as good a time as ever to tell you this. The truth is, I disastered this recipe. Straight up. Here's the proof:

MAYDAY! MAYDAY!

this one has bunny ears. bunny ears.

Shit just don't look right. Like, on so many levels. Like, especially on the bunny ears level. Clearly, my downfall was the hot dog formation. I could have quit, you know. Right there. Done. But I'm the type who cries when throwing out already-made custard not a quitter!

Of course, there really wasn't enough custard to fill them up in a delicious manner (of course). Figures. However, the chocolate glaze did a good job of hiding the misshapen forms. Which is really just a sad plus when you think about it. They taste like eclairs, by the way. But they are still misshapen. And I am still disappointed.

GERRRRR-RATE IT

TASTE: 3/5 > Honestly, they taste pretty okay. I mean, I still don't really care for eclairs so my opinion means about as much as my dog's opinion (so I guess a lot?) but it's just not enough to change my mind about eclairs. Sorryz.
EASE: 3/5 > despite the awful that I created, it really wasn't that hard to do. I mean, all I had to do was make a jumbo hot dog shaped pastry thinger. And I failed at that. But it's not even hard - to some people...I guess.
FILTH OF KITCHEN: 5/5 > Pig sty. Chocolate glaze everywhere. Custard in places I'd like to keep out of conversation. Sadness all over the walls.
DID THE DOG EAT IT THE DOUGH: You know what, the dogs were more interested in the cat than in my baking. It's like they don't even appreciate me!
IMPRESS-O-METER: 3/5 > So much potential. I'm pretty sure though it's the eclair with the bunny ears that brought me down. That and how ridiculous they all look, of course.

Mini Moon Pies

There are a few things I know for certain:

1. My parents think I'm perfect just the way I am.
2. Ponies have flowing rainbow manes and tails, smell like strawberries, taste like sunshine, and breathe cartoon hearts.
3. The moon is absolutely delicious.

There may be other absolute truths in this world and I'm open to suggestion...all I'm saying is that it's probably just these three. And no others.

This recipe (found here) was rich with discovery, dishonesty, and deliciousness. The 3 D's of baking. I mean, I found this in a kitchen drawer while gathering my ingredients...

Maybe you can't make out the detail - let me help you. That pink design down the center? Cat faces. That thing at the end? You guessed it. It's a hook. And the fork prongs you're eying curiously...something's wrong there you say? One prong is definitely rectangular. I'm lost. Utterly lost. I think it's a back scratcher for cats. And that's my best guess.

Moving on. Cookies! The moon! Space travel!



I got you excited there for a bit, right? Stay with me and I'll have you eating part of the Final Frontier in no time.

I liked this recipe right off the bat. The recipe lady herself prefaces it all by saying "Homemade marshmallow is one of my favorite things to make." That's setting the bar pretty high! I'll tell you what my favorite thing to make is: friendships! And then there's this other thing: the recipe actually mentions that you'll need a cookie cutter right alongside the ingredients. Love at first sight?

Let me tell you, love is a bumpy bumpy road full of deceit. First off, the recipe clearly tells me to preheat the oven before anything else. Then it walked me through making the super sticky chocolate-y dough. Man this relationship is really getting off to a great start! So supportive! So helpful! So...stick the dough in the fridge and leave it there overnight?

Love is a bumpy bumpy road full of trying to make you forget that the oven is on and hoping your house burns down. But I shook it off because I am woman, I roar, and I only have the patience to let dough cool for 2 hours anyways. Anything over that is ridiculous. It's called playing hardball. Deal with it.

I thought that would be my first and last letdown with what promised to be an outrageously yummy cookie recipe. I let my guard down. I began to trust again. And then a moon pie stomped on my vulnerable heart.

Let me ask you this: off the top of your head, can you picture exactly where in your kitchen you keep your trusty candy thermometer? What's that? You don't own a candy thermometer? Oh, and you're not Willy Wonka? Because here I was, thinking you were Willy Wonka. With a candy thermometer. Tucked behind your ear. That's where one keeps a candy thermometer right?

WHO KNOWS? Seriously, this recipe goes so far as to politely inform you that you need a round cookie cutter (round! you could use a handful of ordinary kitchen items to make a round cookie cutter!) but fails to mention you may need a candy thermometer? The nerve.

Well, after riding the emotional roller coaster a few times too many, I had to turn to my mother. She kindly informed me that we have a candy thermometer. In it's original packaging. Just because. (Just because clearly there has never been any use for a candy thermometer in everyday life.)

oooo I hate you so much candy thermometer!

I tore that sucker open and got to making my homemade marshmallow. I was all smiles again - this is supposed to be the fun part! Right? Wrong again! Have you ever made marshmallow? With a candy thermometer? You have to boil water, sugar, and corn syrup. The accompanying sound made me fear for my life. I was pretty sure something was about to explode in my kitchen.

when I see this picture, I imagine this being someone's favorite activity. Why did I ever trust this recipe?

Why was this recipe trying to kill me?
I'll tell you why...because I was getting too close...I was only hours(!) away from tasting the moon.

I took my emotions out on whipping the marshmallow...

grrrrrrrrrr.

The cookies were done cooling and so it became sandwiching time. (I forgot to mention the whole cookie baking process...it was like any other time I've had to roll out a dough - entirely too sticky and rather uneventful.) I love sandwiching time! Cookies go from ugly little disks to the most adorable double disks with gooey middles. What could be better?

!!!!

Now the cookie sandwiches had to sit for two hours. I was starting to get the feeling this recipe was asking me to give up. I mean, the recipe initially claimed there were only 2 hours of inactive time involved. By my count, I should have been up to 14 hours (the suggested overnight + 2) already. What else was it going to lie about? Except for everything else it had already lied about (which was a lot).

Two hours passed and I finally got to dipping the sandwiches in the melted chocolate. Again, uneventful. Again, the cookies had to sit for 2 hours.

16 hours is a lot more than 2 hours. I just want the person who created this recipe to realize that. 16 > 2.

Was it worth it?



OhmygodYES.

Biting into one of these Moon Pies is like biting into heaven...if heaven tasted like chocolate and marshmallow and all that is good in life...so what I'm saying is that it was exactly like biting in heaven.

When I look back at the lying and the attempted soul-shattering this recipe sent my way, I can only make sense of it now. Not just anyone can taste the glory that is the moon. It takes determination. It takes rolling with the punches. It takes more or less 16 hours. But probably more. Who's counting anyways?


RATE ME!

TASTE: 5/5 > Heaven.

EASE: 1/5 > Two words: Candy Thermometer.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 4/5 > Marshmallow is sticky. As is anything one may need a candy thermometer for. Plus the chocolate dipping. I'm feeling filthy just reminiscing.

DID THE DOG EAT IT: At one point, I dumped a good amount of powdered sugar on the floor. The dog most certainly ate it.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 3/5 > They may taste great but they honestly look like turds. The three points it does get are from the fact the marshmallow is homemade (don't forget to bring that up every second of everyday) and that it's the moon. Still - it looks like a turd.