52 in 52 #16 - Buckeye Bites

Sugar and peanut butter held together by a pretzel and dipped in chocolate.  Oh it sounds awful!  How could anyone make such a gross recipe?  Totally kidding... this recipe, honestly, had to have been invented by a woman either PMS-ing or pregnant. 

These are nothing short of amazing.  The creamy peanut butter and sugar and the awesome hard candy shell really work together to make these irresistible.  I have made them several different times and have yet to find anyone, besides my toddlers, who hate them.  We are lucky because our toddlers are not into these - more for us!  The creamy, peanut-buttery, pretzel-y, chocolate-y goodness is something that should be shared with others but with a secret stash for yourself to eat after the kids go to bed! 

Buckeye Bites
Prep time: 10 mins
Freeze time: 1 hour

Ingredients:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp. softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
 pretzels
chocolate melts

Instructions: 
Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil.  Cream together butter and peanut butter.  I have used a stand mixer and it seems to incorporate things easier, quicker and you don't feel like you need to stop and have a rest for your arm halfway through.  Mix in sugars.  Dough will be very thick and very sticky.  At this point, I refrigerate the dough for at least 10 minutes to make it significantly less sticky.  Roll the dough into balls and top a pretzel with each ball.  (We do balls about the size of 2 marbles, but you can do more if you would like your bites to be thicker, smaller if you would like them to be thinner.)  When you find that the dough is too sticky to handle, simply put it back in the refrigerator for a few minutes.  Top each ball with a second pretzel with the sides lined up to the bottom pretzel.  Once all of your dough is balled up and in a 'pretzel sandwich', place those pretzel sandwiches in the freezer for at least 20 minutes, if not longer.  Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a double boiler.  Dip half of each pretzel sandwich in the chocolate and place back on your pan.  Once all pretzels are dipped, place in the fridge for 15 minutes. 

Consume with caution - these are dangerously good!

Successful items from Silas's first birthday party

        So let me start this post off on the right foot - I am not a chef by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact, for anyone who knew me about five years ago you would swear that I could NEVER learn how to cook.  Everything that I used to cook was a failure - even if I followed the recipe word for word. 

         Once I got married and had children I started to become more aware of my need to provide sustenance for my family.  It seemed like an almost overnight switch where this light came on in my brain and I began to be able to differentiate recipes that I could be successful with and recipes that maybe were not the best fit.  I started small and have worked my way up to a small repertoire of recipes that have numerous lovers - because anyone can like their own cooking. 

         I now begin my search on Pinterest, of course.  In my opinion, if your recipe has numerous people that have pinned it, it must at least sound good.  I knew that I wanted to make most of the food for Silas's party myself.  Normally for my children's parties I use this awesome cake woman near my house.  Heather from http://www.asweetfix4u.com has made several cakes for us in the past.  She is inexpensive for the quality of cakes that she provides and they have always been a hit.  She has always been able to take my crazy spaced out ideas and turn them into an awesome masterpiece that was exactly what I wanted.  Unfortunately, Silas's party snuck up on me and I was too embarrassed to call the week before and ask her to squeeze us in. 

         So began the search for a cake pan to match his star theme http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=2105-2512  and a recipe deserving of the party.  Now I have made several cakes before from scratch and countless cakes from a box mix - not nearly as awesome and/or brag worthy.  However, none seemed to be awesome enough worth repeating.  Luckily I found an awesome sounding chocolate cake: http://fabulesslyfrugal.com/2012/04/easy-made-from-scratch-you-cant-stop-eating-it-chocolate-cake.html that turned out to be AMAZING.  Unfortunately, when the back of the star cake pan said it took a normal cake recipe to fill it, it meant that a normal cake recipe was going to overflow and be way too much in the pan.  Luckily, this did not alter the taste nor the texture.  I decided that I wanted Silas's smash cake to be vanilla and so another recipe had to be found.  After about an hour reviewing recipes that contained either items that we didn't have or didn't sound like the taste that I was looking for, I resorted to a vanilla boxed cake and it turned out fine.  I did make two full recipes of vanilla buttercream frosting as well:  http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/03/buttercream-frosting/  This is the standard recipe for vanilla buttercream that I have always seen but I wanted to give credit to the source that I used.  It was awesome and had many compliments. 

          We also had "copycat" Pizza Hut pizza sauce for dipping with two pepperoni pizza rolls made with Rhodes bread dough, pepperoni, mozzarella, olive oil and spices.  Both are always a hit and super easy to make.  I also made cake balls which is a super braindead item but it takes SO much work.  I don't like them but I always make them for other people and it really is too much work.  I have always told people that I could train a monkey to do it, but people love them. 

The good news:  We all survived the party.  Silas had an awesome time with his family and friends.  We ate some awesome food. 
The bad news:  We all have super bad allergies today and have been in general the mopiest family this side of Texas. 

Until tomorrow:

-Sara