grandma's peanut butter swirl bars

I promised Mark when he got a Darth Vader cookie jar for his birthday from Amber and Anthony that I'd make him some cookies to "go in it." Even though the cookies didn't make it into the jar and made it to the freezer instead, these were meant to serve the empire. They're Mark's favorite cookie, and one of my grandma's signature cookie recipes. She made these for my sister and me all the time in our cookie care packages in college.

Side note. Chocolate has become a problematic ingredient for me as of late. Most conventional chocolate providers in this country are not fair trade, and child slavery is rampant in the cocoa industry. More than 1/3 of the chocolate we consume in this country comes from the Ivory Coast, where human trafficking is a huge problem. There are groups that work to get children out of this life (www.stopthetraffik.org/ourwork/chocolate). I've tried to stop purchasing chocolate that hasn't been verified from a third party to have not come from the work of child slaves, and so I picked up these SunSpire chocolate chips. More expensive than a bag of Nestle chips, yes, but I know it's coming from farmers who do not enslave children and who are compensated fairly for their goods. Something to think about, certainly. Luckily there are several brands of chocolate that are recommended that are confirmed to not participate in child slavery which are fantastic. SunSpire is just one, but Green & Black's is a great gourmet chocolate that also makes bars for baking.

But on to the baking! Beginning with peanut butter, my all time favorite.


Once the chips are in the pan, you put it in the oven for just a few minutes, until they look like this.


Then swirl!

Bake them up, and you get one giant cookie, ready to be cut into slabs and devoured. I am pretty sure we didn't even let this cool.

candy bar cupcakes part 2

Time for Snickers cupcakes. I made these for my dad's birthday; his favorite candy bar has been Snickers for as long as I can remember. First up, photos of the cake; peanut brown sugar.




Side note - my gramma Taylor used to have one of these nut grinders when I was little. One of my favorite things to do was have her give me some walnuts or peanuts to grind in the little yellow nut grinder, even if we weren't baking anything. We got a similar grinder recently and it grinds those nuts better than a food processor could ever hope to.

This time the mug was Boston - procured on our honeymoon last fall.

Into the oven, and onto the stickiest and messiest topping I have ever made for a cupcake or dessert. Peanut butter marshmallow nougat.



Cake is done!


On to the chocolate frosting!


Assembly!


A note if you make these cupcakes. They are delicious. But approximately 5 minutes after I took this photo, I noticed the toppings starting to slide all over the place. The marshmallow nougat likes to spread out under the weight of the chocolate frosting and the residual heat from the cupcakes (though I thought they were totally cool!). By the time I was done frosting them all, the first few had disintegrated. By the time they got to Erie for my dad's birthday, they were a disaster. So use the nougat sparingly. And only when the cupcakes are 100% cool. Allow for some spreading. But make them. Because they are delicious!

belated birthday cheesecakes

I am horribly behind on posting about birthday desserts. I made two cheesecakes in October for the birthdays of Ed and Anthony, and one faux-cheesecake (I say that b/c it wasn't baked and contained Cool Whip.) for Brad in December. I only took photos of the first two, and they were interesting and new recipes for me. Let's start with Ed's - Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake.


That's a LOT of chocolate and a lot of peanut butter and milk fat. Ah, sweet baked goods, how I love you so.

This recipe has you making your own flat cocoa powder cookies first, and then making a crust out of them.

While those are baking, you get started on dollops of peanut butter which are frozen and then dropped into the cheesecake batter later.


(That's in my freezer if you didn't notice in the picture.)

Now it's cheesecake time.


It's starting to smell fantastic at this point. Especially if you are a peanut butter lover like me. I'd eat it plain on big spoons when I was little.

Cookies done and crushed, get them ready to mix with some butter.


I like to put my paw in a plastic bag to form the crust because it sticks much less to the bag than my fingers. And we need all the crust we can get.

Drop the peanut butter bits into the cheesecake. Swoon.


Bake. Make a ganache with cream and chocolate. (My pics all turned out green somehow, so I'm skipping them.)

Top with ganache and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups.


Oh yeah. You wish you were friends with Ed so you got a piece of this cheesecake. :)

In a completely different vein of cheesecake baking, I made an orange and cream cheesecake for Anthony's birthday, also in October.


Zest your oranges.


Take the easy way out and use a refrigerated cookie crust for the bottom.


Cover with the orange zest. I know it seems weird. Trust me on that one.

Start on the filling with cream cheese, sugar, and orange marmalade. I felt like Paddington Bear.

There is an orange-colored white chocolate glaze for the top. Add the food coloring in dots.

Pour on top of the baked cheesecake.


I know it kind of looks like a piece of grilled cheese or an egg casserole, but I promise it was good. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised that it tasted as good as it did. Score!