Ball Week! - Day 2: Peanut Butter & Peanut Butter Pretzel Balls

Welcome to day 2 of Ball Week!!!  On Day 2, you get a pair of balls.  You're welcome.

I should have apologized yesterday for all the inappropriate innuendo that will be appearing on the blog this week, but when you talk about balls for a full week it can't be helped.  Consider yourself warned.

These two balls are so similar that I decided to write about them in the same post.  They both have exactly the same ingredients except the the pretzel version has pretzels (surprise!) and a little salt added to the mix.

Can we talk about peanut butter for a second?

I love peanut butter, especially in desserts.  Peanut butter cookies are one of my favorites.  Add chocolate to peanut butter and holy goodness.  You know those peanut butter cookies with the chocolate kisses on them?  YUM.  I will eat them until I'm sick.

So, for the regular peanut butter balls, you mix peanut butter, butter, brown sugar and powdered sugar together and then roll it into balls.

Of all the balls I made during this extravaganza, these rolled up the best.  The balls were smooth and I had no issues getting the mixture to stick together.

The peanut butter balls gets dipped in chocolate and you're done, these were some of the easiest balls today.

I'm just ignoring the inappropriate ball statements now.  I can't avoid them.

So, that's the regular Peanut Butter Ball.  Now on to the pretzel version.

For this version, I crushed up some pretzels to add the mixture of peanut butter, butter, brown sugar and powdered sugar.

This made the mixture have that great combination of sweet and salty.  Mmmm, salty balls.

Don't judge me, I warned you.  Do you remember that SNL skit with Alec Baldwin and the Schweddy balls?  It's one of my favorites and I can assure you that Pete Schweddy would absolutely love these balls.

This recipe had a smaller ratio of powdered sugar in it than the recipe for the regular peanut butter balls did.  That, I believe, is what made the dough harder to roll.

They also didn't hold their shape quite as well when dipped in the chocolate, even after chilling the dough in the refrigerator for an hour or so.  They ended up being more like ovals and tended to stick to the fork as they were being dipped.

Next time I make these I'll probably triple the powdered sugar.

Nearly everyone at the tasting had a hard time deciding between the regular and pretzel versions except the groom.  He quickly voted for the regular peanut butter balls and they will be making an appearance at the wedding.  The groom gets to pick a few things for the wedding right?

My friend Squirrel on the other hand was firmly in the pretzel corner.  (No, her real name is not Squirrel, that's her code name but we do sometimes call her that in real life).  BTW, I just googled "do squirrels like pretzels?" and you wouldn't believe the number of You Tube videos showing squirrels eating pretzels.  One squirrel ate pretzels in a stroller and another stole a pretzel right out of some kid's hand.  So, the answer is yes.  Squirrels like pretzels.

My opinion?  I like that the regular PB balls held their shape so well, but I liked the flavor of the pretzel version better.  In the future I would probably just add crushed pretzels to the regular PB recipe.

Here are links to the recipes I used:
Peanut Butter Balls
Pretzel Peanut Butter Balls

So, we've got one ball selected for the wedding... three more to go.

Julie

Ball Week! - Day 1: Bourbon Balls

Welcome to I'll Bake It, You Eat It Ball Week!  This has nothing to do with sports, galas, or... those.  It has to do with little round treats and lots of them!!  I'm so excited about this week that I'm squeaking over here.  Can you hear me?  I love themes.

I have a dear friend who is getting married in a couple of months and she has asked me to do a dessert station at her wedding reception.  This friend is the Queen of cake balls!  She's been making them for years and all of our friends are obsessed with them.  So, in honor of the Ball Queen (I'm pretty sure she and her future husband would not approve of this title), we decided that the items on the dessert station should be all kinds of balls.

Last night we had some friends over and tasted eight different kinds of balls so that my friend and her fiance could select the ones they want to serve at the wedding.  It was fun night that ended with a serious sugar high and a final decision about what their guests will be enjoying on the big day.

All week I will be talking about the different treats we tasted last night, but the first was CA's favorite... the bourbon ball (I know you're surprised).

This bourbon ball was a little different from the others I've had in the past.  I happily tasted a lot of bourbon balls a couple of years ago when we made our rounds on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  Most were a mixture of butter, powdered sugar and bourbon rolled into a ball, topped with a pecan half and dipped in chocolate.  They were very delicious, but so many of the ball options I was making for the tasting were dipped in chocolate, that I thought it would be nice to have something a little different to mix it up.

This base of this version is ground up vanilla wafers and pecans mixed with powdered sugar, corn syrup, bourbon and melted chocolate.

All those ingredients get mixed together and rolled into a ball that is then rolled in granulated sugar.  The sugar is a nice aesthetic touch because it makes the ball almost sparkly on the outside.

You should be warned that these balls have a LOT of bourbon flavor.  While CA loved them, most of the other tasters thought they were too bourbony for mass consumption.  However, if you're a bourbon lover, this is the ball for you.

We deduced that the reason the bourbon flavor is so strong is that the it is not cooked at all so every bit of the alcohol stays in the ball.

To make these bourbon balls, I followed this recipe from Brown Eyed Baker.  I think it's a great one and will keep it in my repertoir even though it will not be served at the upcoming wedding.

Thanks for tuning in to Day 1 of Ball Week.  We've got 7 more balls to go... balls, balls, balls.

Julie

(Please note that the word "ball" is used 25 times in this post)

Baking Bouchon - Recipe 32: Coconut Lime Eclairs

Mmmm, mmmm, good!  These little buggers are a just a creamy ball of sweet, summery goodness.  I've made eclairs once before... chocolate ones... and they were pretty darn good too.  In fact, I had a small love affair chocolate pastry cream back then.  My love doesn't last though, because I've totally left behind chocolate pastry cream for lime curd.  (Don't worry chocolate pastry cream, my food affections are finicky so I'll be back.)

Since we've made eclairs here before I'm not going to spend too much time talking about the shells.  We need to get to the good stuff... lime curd.   If you need a more detailed reminder, here you go.  Plus, then you can also remind yourself about chocolate pastry cream which will put a smile on your face.


Basically you melt butter, water and salt together, add flour and sugar and cook a bit.  Then you whip it up with a bunch of eggs and pipe it into chunky little logs.

I did a better job piping the shells this time... I learned my lesson from having a bunch of skinny shells last time that I couldn't fill.  For some reason the tops of the eclairs cracked quite a bit this time which I'm pretty sure has to do with the fact that I baked them at too high of a temperature because I neglected to follow the directions that told me to turn the oven down once you put the eclairs in.  Oops.  Oh well, no major damage done.

These particular eclairs have 3 components to them.  They are filled with lime curd, topped with a glaze and rolled in toasted coconut.

Let's start with the curd!  Oh, the curd.  I've made many-a-curd before but this one... oh my!

This curd has silver leaf gelatin in it.  If any of you need to be reminded about my first silver leaf gelatin disaster, read this.  I'm still embarrassed so let's not discuss it ever again. 

Silver leaf gelatin is not silver, just in case you were wondering - silver had to do with the strength of the "gelling" effect of the gelatin.
It comes in sheets and you put it in ice water to soften it so you can start working with it.

The other components of the lime curd are eggs, sugar, lime juice, lime zest and a lot of butter.  Seriously, this recipe has twice as much butter in it than other curd recipes I have made in the past.

First the eggs and sugar get cooked with the lime juice until the mixture thickens up nicely.  At this point it's super tart!

In your average curd recipe, this is the point where you whisk in some butter to soften the tart flavor of the curd and make it a little bit more silky in texture.  This recipe takes that step to a whole other level.

The cooked eggs, sugar and lime juice get strained into a blender.  Then, with the blender running, you add the butter a little bit at a time.  The result is amazing!  You're basically whipping the butter into the curd so it ends up ridiculously fluffy and creamy.  Then you add a little lime zest right at the end to produce those pretty green flecks of color.  I'm definitely throwing away every other curd recipe I have and will make this one exclusively, forever.

Next I needed to whip up the glaze for the top of the eclairs.  This acts as the "glue" to keep the toasted coconut on top.  I totally jacked up the glaze.  The list of ingredients here was not entirely clear.  It read "Pouring/icing fondant".  My internet search turned up a bunch of stuff but I decided that this mean Dry Fondant Powder.  Once I started reading the instructions in the recipe this made absolutely no sense because you are just supposed to add a bit of milk to the Pouring/icing fondant to loosen it up which doesn't exactly apply to powder.  So, I checked out the instructions on back of my bag and made something up with milk, melted butter and the dry fondant.  It worked fine but probably would not have been pretty and shiny on its own.  Good thing it got a coconut disguise. 

Toasted coconut is the last component in these eclairs but this isn't regular coconut.  This is dessicated coconut which is basically unsweetened coconut that is dried and ground into little bits.  I'm sure you could use regular coconut here but the fact that this is unsweetened helps keep the eclairs from being overly sweet.

All right - let's put these little suckers together!!

A pastry bag is used to inject all the fluffy, creamy, limey, buttery goodness of the lime curd inside of the eclairs.

The top of the eclairs then get dipped in the glaze which is warm and gooey.

Then the eclairs get a beautiful topping of toasted coconut.







 The result is a beautiful eclair with an amazing flavor.  The eclair shell is rich, the curd is... well, we've already discussed my feelings on the curd, the glaze and the coconut add some nice texture to the top.  I'm a big fan of these.  I have this body spray that is lime coconut scented and these definitely remind me of that (that's a good thing, I promise) and that reminds me of sunscreen which reminds me of summer and summer makes me smile so, basically, these eclairs make me smile... and want to go to the beach.

I actually made two different eclairs today which caused my love for lime curd to be replaced by another food crush but you have to wait more than a week to hear about the other eclair because I have something very special planned for you all next week.  I won't ruin the surprise by telling you about it but I can tell you that we're going to have a ball!

Love y'all!
Julie

Subway Art - Summer & Patriotic

Remember a long, long time ago when I posted my Spring Subway Art?  Fine, it was in March, but that seems like a really long time ago.  Anyway, I promised I'd share any future versions of subway art with you and I intend to fulfill that commitment right now.  Just call me accountable.

I created two new versions in anticipation of Summer because Summer is almost here.  Yes, I realize  Spring just started but I have no patience.  Plus, I love Summer because it's the best season there is.  Period.  When else can you wear flip flops every day and get away with wearing a giant t-shirt and calling it a dress?  I can feel the beach calling my name now.

These printables are great because you can print them on your home computer and they fit perfectly in an 8" x 10" picture frame.  It's the easiest and cheapest decoration ever.

The first version is straight up summertime.  I love every word in this little gem.....they make me smile.  I'm definitely ready for Summer.  Sorry Spring, you're nice and all, but Summer's got you beat.

I plan on switching out the regular summer version for this patriotic version for Memorial Day and 4th of July.  It goes perfectly with the Patriotic Pinwheel Wreath I posted yesterday!

You can download the Summer version here.

And you can download the Patriotic version here.

Also, don't forget about the Christmas, Wine, Birdie and Easter versions!

My post is linked up on Fine Craft Guild - click here to see it there!


Hope you enjoy!
Julie

Patriotic Pinwheel Wreath

It's been a while since I did a craft post.  I've been a busy baking bee lately and my stomach needed a butter break so I decided to get crafty today.

I pinned this Pinwheel Wreath tutorial from Michaels on Pinterest months ago and finally got around to making it.  I took some liberties with it based on the crafty items I already had in my house and the theme I was going for.  I really wanted something to hang on the door this summer so I went with a red, white & blue theme and I think it turned out super cute!!!

Supplies
This is what I used, but you can certainly make adjustments based on what you've got hanging around...

• Cardboard Circle - 14 1/2" on the outside and 11" on the inside.
• 24 strips of paper measuring 12" x 1 1/2" (I used 12 in red colors and 12 in blue colors - you're gluing 2 strips together to make 12 pinwheels, so the strips that get glued together should be a matching pattern or color)
• 24  1 1/2" circles punched out of paper (I used 6 in red colors, 6 in blue colors and 12 of any color for the back side)
• up to 12 small flowers, buttons or brads (I used 9 total and left a few of my pinwheels plain)
• Approx. 125 1" stars punched out of paper
• 12" Wired Ribbon
• Glue Stick
• Glue Gun

 Step 1:

The first step was to cut of my cardboard circle from an old cardboard box I had lying around.  I used 2 different sides platters to trace the circle and then cut it out using scissors.  The edges don't need to be perfect since you're covering them up anyway.

Step 2:

Take 2 of the 12" x 1 1/2" paper strips and fold them in an accordion style every 1/2".

Glue the 2 strips together using a glue gun, making sure that the spot where you glue them together still creates a continuous accordion.

Step 3:

Glue the two ends of your long accordion strip together with the glue gun to form a circle (depending on how many folds you made on each strip, you may need to cut off one fold at one end to make a perfect circle).

Press the center of the accordion circle down and use the glue gun to secure one of the paper circles to the pinwheel (I had the best success doing the back side first).  Then flip it over and glue another circle to the front side of the pinwheel.

Embellish the middle of the circle on the front side with a brad, flower or button if  you wish.

Step 4:

Repeat steps 2 & 3 with the remaining paper strips until you have 12 pinwheels.


Step 5:

I wanted the back of my wreath to be cute too so I used a glue stick to glue paper stars to the back of my cardboard circle.  I used a couple different shades of red and blue along with white and tried to keep them in order... red, white and blue... in two rows around the cardboard circle.

I used approximately 100 paper stars on the back side of the wreath.

Step 6:

Glue a few stars to a 3" section on the front of the wreath and tie the ribbon over that part to form the hanger for your wreath.

Step 7:

Use the hot glue gun to glue the pinwheels to the front of the wreath.  I alternated mine between the red and blue versions.

Step 8:

I had some spots in between the pinwheels where I could still see the cardboard, so I glued a few paper stars in those spots to cover up any exposed cardboard.

See how there is a window in the top of the door?  That's why I wanted the back to be pretty too because you can see it from the inside of the house through that window.

I think this turned out so cute!  Especially on my red front door!  I <3 America.

Julie

Gluten Free Magic Bars

You know the recipe on the back of the can of sweetened condensed milk?  Yep, those magical cookie bars filled with chocolate, coconut, nuts and sweet, gooey goodness.  Mmmmm.  I definitely ate my fair share of these as a kid and they are so freakin' easy to make! 

Usually these bars are made with a graham cracker crust and graham crackers are full of gluten (not that I, personally, have anything against gluten.  Have you read this blog?).  This time, however,  I made one very small adjustment here to remove the gluten and PRESTO! - gluten free magic bars!

I made these for my sweet gluten free friend (she's a lot of other wonderful things too but I like to use her a prop in my blog to show how food diverse I am) who came over for dinner.  That day, I made a million other glutenous desserts for everyone else but I wanted her to have a something sweet too.  You see, I can't possibly let anyone out of my house without being in a sugar coma.  It's the rules.

Only a very small change was required to make this recipe gluten free and it has to do with the crust.   Instead of using the usual graham cracker crumbs mixed with butter to form the crust, I used almond meal.

I mixed the almond meal with a bit of sugar and melted butter, pressed into the bottom of the pan and baked it until it was nice and golden brown.  That's just as much work as the regular version which is not very much.

Then you sprinkle all the yummy chocolatey, coco-nutty, craisiney and pecany goodness on top and and top that with sweet, gooey sweetened condensed milk and bake them until they're golden.

The original recipe does not have craisins in it, but I think they add a nice tartness that breaks up the some of the sweet.

My favorite part is how the coconut gets toasty in the oven.  I love the smell of toasted coconut - it reminds me of the beach -  so baking these up made my house smell like island heaven.

Seriously, it's not possible that these could be anything but tasty.  Who needs stupid graham crackers, anyway?  Not this girl.

Actually, the almond meal goes perfectly with these bars because of its nutty flavor.  That melds perfectly well with the toasted coconut and the pecans so you don't have to tell anyone that these are gluten free.  No one will notice, much less care and much much less complain.  They will eat the nutty, chocolatey goodness and compliment you on your dessert.  End of story.

Gluten Free Magic Bars
I made these in a small, 7"x4" pan, but have tripled the recipe here to accommodate a standard 9"x9" square pan.  This will make 12 bars (or 9 if you're hungry).

Ingredients
1 1/4 cup Almond Meal/Flour
3 T Sugar
3  T Butter, melted
1/2 cup Chocolate Chips
3/4 cup Coconut
1/4 cup + 2 T Craisins
1/4 cup + 2 T Pecan Pieces
1/2 cup Sweetened Condensed Milk

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9"x9" pan with cooking spray.  In a small bowl mix together the almond meal, sugar and melted butter.  Spread the mixture into the prepared pan, pressing it down to completely cover the bottom of the pan.  Bake for 15 minutes until the crust is light golden brown.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips, coconut, craisins and pecans over the baked crust and lightly push down on the toppings so they are slightly mushed into the crust.  Pour the sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top.  Bake for 30-35 minutes until the top of golden brown.

Let the bars cool completely before cutting.


Julie