Ancillaries: Peanut Butter Cups

A little over eighty years ago, Harry Burnett Reese was working as a shipping foreman at Mr. Milton S. Hershey's chocolate factory in Pennsylvania. After dabbling with several of his own confection creations in his basement / test kitchen (hmmm, sounds familiar), Reese hit on a winner by combining peanut butter with chocolate...Mr. Hershey's chocolate, of course. Originally sold for one cent each - and subsequently called "penny cups" - Reese's famous chocolate peanut butter cups were later bought by Hershey, outfitted in that famous orange wrapper and sold in pairs. Today, we salute the famous cups with our homemade version:



WHAT YOU NEED:

1 bag of Dove Milk Chocolate squares (sorry for the dis, Hershey)
1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup of white chocolate chips
1/4 cup of crunchy peanut butter
1/4 cup of unsalted butter
1/2 tsp. of vanilla
1/3 cup of graham cracker crumbs**
1/2 cup of powdered sugar

**you can buy these, but it's sooo much better if you crush up fresh graham crackers


WHAT YOU DO:

1. Unwrap half of the bag of Dove chocolates. For those of you that have a framed photo of a kitten in a coffee mug somewhere in your home, be sure to enjoy the multitude of happy-go-lucky, Zen phrases hidden beneath each chocolate piece.

2. In a double-boiler, melt the Dove chocolates with half of the semi-sweet and white chocolate chips (about 17 Dove squares along with 1/8 cup each of the chips).



3. Line a mini muffin tin with mini muffin papers (these ingredients make 12+ mini cups). Spoon about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the melted chocolate into each muffin paper. Keep the papers inside the tin - I've tried this several ways and the tin gives it the most stability. Use a small paint brush to stir the chocolate around the base of the muffin paper, then "brush" it up the sides. Place the tin in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes.



4. In a small saucepan, melt together the butter and peanut butter over low heat. Stirring constantly, add in the vanilla, the powdered sugar and the graham cracker crumbs.

5. Spoon about 2 teaspoons of the peanut butter mixture into each chilled chocolate cup and use the back of the spoon to press the mixture flat. Place the tin back in the refrigerator to chill for another 20 to 30 minutes.

6. Melt the remaining chocolate (the rest of the Dove chocolate squares and the remaining 1/8 cups of the semi-sweet and white chocolate chips). Spoon in about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of the melted chocolate to fill and top each cup, spreading the melted chocolate to the edges. Chill the cups for at least 1 hour to allow them to set.





...or maybe this is how it all went down.

Salty & Sweet

My taste buds seem to get excited by the art of contrast, specifically the mix of salty and sweet. Fruit preserves on a sausage biscuit? Check. Glazed pecans from Priester's Pecans in Fort Deposit, AL? Mmmm... Chocolate covered pretzels? Oh yeah. A little salt on my margarita? Of course. BBQ sauce that's hot but sugary? Yes please. Milkduds in my popcorn at the movies? Only always.

There's just something about how those two parts of the tongue become active by one single bite. It's beautiful. It's mysterious. It's where God lives. Most importantly, it's delicious.

With that, here's something salty and sweet for your ear drums. It's a mashup of "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" by Rapper/ex-music mogul Jay-Z and "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve. The lyrics coming from the former and the music/hook by the latter. Hope you enjoy it.

-jbc