Cookies and Cream Popcorn

Difficulty: easy
Time consuming: nah.

For Halloween at school, I didn't dress up, I didn't decorate my room. I had a sad attempt at decorating my door.  And maybe 3 of my kids actually did Halloween related activities.  Not that I don't enjoy the holiday, but the month really got away from me.  I did manage to carve pumpkins and make pumpkin seeds, but that's pretty much the extent of it.  I did however dress up for the belated Halloween party this past Saturday and dressed as a rugby player (courtesy of hubby's closet).  I had a really clever costume planned around some Jay-Z lyrics, but hubby was a funhater and went as a sad hobo clown (dumb!).  But anywho.  For Halloween I did manage to whip up a treat for all the fantastic teachers at my school: Cookies and Cream Popcorn with Reese Pieces.  I doubled the recipe and it was almost completely gone by lunch.  I was told that my boss hi-jacked a container and didn't return it until it was empty.

The great thing about this recipe is that it is so adaptable.  You can add Reese Pieces, M&M's, or other candies.  You can use colored vanilla melts like red or green for Christmas, orange for Halloween (unless you go to Walmart and they only have lime green colored Wilton candy melts), red and blue for the Fourth of July, you get the idea.  And everyone will love you for bringing it.  I promise.

The recipe:

Ingredients
1 bag of kettle corn, popped; or regular unbuttered popcorn
6 oz vanilla candy melts or white chocolate
12 chocolate wafer cookies, like Oreo's, crushed
3/8 cup (give or take) candy like Reese Pieces (optional)
additional chocolate or vanilla candy melts for drizzling (optional and decorative)

Directions

1. Pop kettle corn in the microwave.  Be careful not to burn it!  Put popcorn in the largest bowl you have (I used a bowl that I make party mix in) and sort out as many unpopped kernels as you can (you don't want to chip a tooth).

2.  Melt the vanilla candy melts - put into bowl and microwave on 50% power for 30 seconds, stir, and repeat until melted and smooth.  Or you can melt over a double boiler.  Pour over popcorn.  Add Oreos and candy if you are using them.

3.  Using a spatula, gently fold the popcorn and white chocolate together until everything seems evenly coated.

4.  Line some cookie sheets or counter tops with wax paper and spread popcorn mixture over it.  Spread out and let dry, about 20 minutes.  Serve and eat immediately, at or store in an airtight container.


Recipe from Sweet Tooth plus I added Reese Pieces

Beer Marshmallows

Difficult?  Easier than you think.
Time consuming? Moderately so.

Beer marshmallows taste way better than you think they should, and they'd be an awesome and surprising addition to any football party (GO BUCKS!).  These marshmallows are reminiscent of overly crowded basements at fraternity houses my freshman  sophomore junior year of college - that beery smell and taste but without the annoying girls and frat-tastic guys.  These remind me of giving my husband a smooch at a football game - an awesome combination of beer and pretzels (him) and chocolate (me, of course).  Basically what I'm saying is that even if you don't care for beer (like me), or love it and wish you could bathe in it (don't), you can basically connect some awesome memory to these delicious, homemade, sweet and salty beer marshmallows dipped in chocolate and coated in crushed pretzels.

Check out How Sweet It Is (where I found the recipe) for awesome photos and the original recipe (which I am sharing below).

The Recipe

 Makes a 13x9" pan

Ingredients:
3 1/2 envelopes (not ounces, envelopes) unflavored gelatin, Knox brand is pretty common
1 cup cold, flat beer, divided (any beer is fine, I think I used Yuengling)
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites or meringue powder of equal portion
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 cups chocolate chips
pretzels, crushed (any kind is good but the original author suggests the hard sourdough kind)

Directions:

1.  Flatten the beer;  do this by taking the cap off and leaving the bottle open in the fridge overnight or by pouring cold beer into a bowl and whisking vigorously to reduce the carbonation.

2.  Grab your 9 x 13 pan, cover with oil (e.g., Pam, butter, crisco, etc), and dust with powdered sugar to coat. Set aside.

3.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, pour 1/2 cup cold beer and 3 1/2 packs of gelatin. Gently mix with a spoon, set aside.

4.  In a medium sauce pan combine sugar, remaining beer, corn syrup and salt. Heat over low and whisk until sugar is dissolved, about 3-5 minutes. Increase the heat to medium and bring the sugar to a boil.  Stick in a candy thermometer. Let it boil for 8-12 minutes, until the sugar reaches 240 degrees F. The mixture will look light brown (darker or lighter, depending on the beer you use).

5.  Once the mixture is at 240 degrees, turn off the heat and gently pour it in the gelatin bowl with the mixer on low speed (Kitchen Aid speed 2) and the whisk attachment attached  (I recommend pouring a slow and steady stream down the side of the bowl so the whisk doesn't send how sugar all over the bowl).  Turn the mixer to high (Kitchen Aid speed 8 or 10) and beat for for 6-8 minutes. It will grow in size and be white and fluffy.

6.  While the beer/sugar mixture is going, whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks in another bowl (a hand mixer works well).  Once stiff peaks are formed, add the egg whites and vanilla to the beer/sugar mixture and beat until just combined.

7.  Pour marshmallow into the 9 x 13 pan. It's very sticky, do your best getting it all out of the bowl.  Smooth down (a Pam coated spatula helps) then dust powdered sugar on top.  Let sit to firm up for 3-5 hours.

8.  Once firm, flip the pan onto a cutting board to remove the marshmallow.  Cut into desired sizes (if you taste-test at this time, you may not love the way they taste - I didn't and neither did my husband, but keep going).

9. Melt chocolate chips in microwave (30 seconds at 50% power, stir, repeat) or over a double boiler. Dip marshmallow squares in chocolate then roll in pretzel crumbs.  I added extra sea salt for a stronger sweet/salty punch.  Place on a wax paper lined baking sheet to harden.  You can speed up the process by putting a tray of coated marshmallows in the fridge.  Eat and enjoy!!

Recipe from How Sweet It Is.

Brownie Batter Dip

Difficult? Nope
Time consuming? Nope

Who doesn't love licking sweet, chocolatey brownie batter from the bowl (and spatula and fingers) before tossing all the dirty dishes in the sink?  Except for that whole don't-eat-raw-eggs thing.  That can end badly.  This brownie batter dip has no eggs in it and definitely got a thumbs up from my six-year-old niece who basically just ate this with her fingers.

The recipe

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter, room temperature
1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese or neufchatel, room temperature
2-3 cups powdered sugar (doesn't have to be sifted)
5-8 tablespoons of cocoa powder (also doesn't have to be sifted)
2 tablespoons brown sugar, lightly packed
1 tablespoon white sugar
2+ tablespoons of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
1.  Using a hand or stand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese together.
2.  Add one cup of powdered sugar, mix.  Add 1 tablespoon of milk, mix.  Add another cup of powdered sugar, mix.  Add another tablespoon of milk, mix.
3.  Add 5 tablespoons of cocoa powder, all of the brown and white sugars, and the vanilla.  Mix.
4.  Taste it - is it still too tangy from the cream cheese?  Add more cocoa powder.  Is the consistency too thin?  Add more powdered sugar.  Is the consistency too thick?  Add more milk.
5.  Serve with pretzels, vanilla wafers, graham crackers, Oreo's, anything.  And enjoy.

Recipe modified from Something Swanky.

Muddy Buddy Bars

Time consuming? Not at all.
Difficult? Not at all.

Everyone knows what muddy buddies are. They also go under the names puppy chow, dog food, monkey munch, and apparently also chewbacca chew (although I've never heard of that last one before). It's silky, melted chocolate and peanut butter covering a crunchy cereal (typically Chex or something similar) and tossed in powdered sugar. Absolutely melt-in-your mouth heaven!

These bars are slightly less messy to eat and better portion controlled than the bowl of sweet and crunchy amazing-ness I grew up with; yet they still retain the original experience of powdered sugar melting on you tongue quickly followed by the one-two punch combo of chocolate and peanut butter, all completed by that tell-tale crunch of the cereal that meant it was time to toss a few more bites in your mouth.

Good luck sharing these with anyone.  My friend Jamie and I made these for our cheerleaders and completely ate the entire pan ourselves.  And don't think I wasn't tempted to pummel her with a spatula just so I didn't have to share at all.

The recipe: Muddy Buddy Bars
yields 16-25 (more or less depending on how big or small you cut them)

Ingredients
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2 cups chocolate chips
4 cups crispy rice cereal

1 cup marshmallows
Powdered sugar for dusting (about 1/2 cup, more or less)

Directions
1. Line a 9x9" baking dish with foil and spray with nonstick coating. Set aside.

2. In a large, heat proof bowl set over a double boiler, stir peanut butter and chocolate chips with a large spatula until smooth and melted. Remove from heat.

3. Add cereal and gently fold to coat. Add marshmallows and continue to fold until everything seems evenly coated with the chocolate mixture.

4. Spread cereal mixture into the prepared baking pan evenly. Top with the powdered sugar sifted evenly over top and refrigerate until cool. The freezer also works if you are impatient, just don't leave it in there so long that the bars freeze solid.

5. Once cooled, remove the bars from the pan by lifting the foil overhang. Cut into desired sizes and serve.


Recipe from Cookies and Cups

Sweet & Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Time consuming: Nope
Difficulty level: Not at all

On Friday, my husband's rugby club had their annual "skip" day. Since we're both teachers, we didn't have anything to skip but we still got to have to an awesome day with some fun people. We started the day with golf, which went much better for me than I expected.  I am terrible at golf - I only counted half my strokes and still only made par for the front nine, I guess I better stick to things I'm good at, like baking. After we played the front 9 holes, we came home, relaxed, and I prepared these babies:

After the rest of the group played the back nine, a few people came over for some drinks before we headed out for a Reds game.  The game was exciting, the Reds won, and the night ended with fireworks set to music! All in all, a great skip day!

These bars tasted great, but they were kinda hard to eat in this Ohio heat as both the top and bottom layers can get pretty melty. Next time, I might try to make a pretzel crust similar to how you'd make a graham cracker crust and then add a layer of pb and pretzels then the layer of chocolate. My favorite thing about this recipe was that it was no-bake, so I didn't have to heat up my kitchen using the oven!!

Sorry for the lack of photos, I was a little rushed because I snuck a nap in after golf and forget to snap pics as I went.

First, line an 8x8" baking pan with foil and spray with nonstick spray. Next, crush up pretzles in a food proccessor until you have fine crumbs. Some big chunks are ok, though. My mini food processor made a half cup of crumbs when I filled it with mini pretzles.

In a microwave safe bowl, melt butter. Add to pretzle crumbs, powedered sugar, and peanut butter. Mix until thoroughly combined then pat into the foil lined pan. Pop into the fridge so it can firm up a bit while you prep the chocolate.

In a microwave safe bowl (the one you melted butter in is fine), mix chocolate chips and peanut butter. Microwave in 30 second increments at half power, stirring in between, until the chocolate mixture is melted and smooth. Pour this over peanut butter layer and smooth over so that it is evenly distrubuted. Pop into the fridge or freezer until the chocolate has set. Cut, serve, and enjoy!

The recipe:
Sweet and Salty, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel No-Bake Bars 


Ingredients:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups pretzel crumbs, fine
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons peanut butter

Directions
 1. Line 8×8 pan with foil. Spray with baking spray.

2. In a medium microwave-safe bowl, melt  butter in microwave (about 30 seconds on HIGH). Combine with pretzel crumbs, peanut butter & confectioners sugar. Spread evenly into prepared pan and refrigerate at least 10 minutes.

3. Combine semi-sweet chips and peanut butter and microwave in 30 second intervals at half power, stirring frequently until melted and smooth. Spread evenly over the peanut butter/pretzel layer and refrigerate at least one hour. Remove from pan and cut into squares.

4. Sprinkle with fine grain sea salt for an extra punch of salt to really compliment the chocolate on top. Or not. They're great either way.

This recipe is slightly adapted from Baker Lady who slightly adapted it from the Craving Chronicles.