Reinventing the Candy Bar: Almond Joy

Ever since I was old enough to know how much Christmas Shopping my Mom ACTUALLY does, we've made it our little tradition to wake up super early on Black Friday and head out for a full day worth of sale shopping. We shop, chat, strategize, and eat. We usually get coffee and hot chocolate in the morning and eat a big lunch during the day, and snack here and there while we're out. My mom and I have very similar likes when it comes to chocolate-y snacks. Raspberry-filled, chocolate covered, nutty, caramel, something or other shoved into a candy bar has our name alllllll over it. So when I decided to start the "Reinventing the Candy Bar" series, (in which the candy bar itself is used in a recipe, or the inner ingredients are used separately), I immediately thought of my mom's favorite, Almond Joy.

Coconut, almonds and chocolate wrapped in one delicious bar. How irresistible?!? I decided to wedge all of this in between pretzels.  YES. PRETZELS. There isn't really a set recipe of exact measurements for this, it just depends on personal taste. I like more coconut, so ya know what? I added more coconut.

Waffle pretzels all lined up- courtesy of Maddie!

Melted 2 Large bars of Hershey's Dark Chocolate over the stove and added coconut and chopped almonds. (heavy on the coconut, this made about 40 bites)

Scooped it onto a pretzel and placed another pretzel on top. Threw these babies in the fridge for half an hour so the chocolate could set and....

Serious Heaven. 

I left for my boyfriends house an hour away for the night, and by the time I got home the next day, half the tray was gone. Here's just a quick little overview of how to make Almond Joy Pretzel Bites

Ingredients: 

1 Bag of Waffle Pretzels

2 Large Hershey Bars- Milk or Dark Chocolate

Shredded Coconut

Chopped Almonds

Directions: 

1. Melt chocolate bars over the stove until completely melted. 

2. Add coconut and almonds to the melted chocolate. As much or as little of each as you prefer. 

3. Scoop by the teaspoon onto waffle pretzels and sandwich it together with a second pretzel. 

4. Refrigerate to harden center. 

 5. ENJOY!!

Peppermint Patties

Recently, I've been completely obsessed with the iPhone app FoodGawker. My boyfriend scrolls through it on my phone, "favoriting" the recipes of actual food that contain any manly ingredients such as steak, bacon, and hot sauce. Me on the other hand, scroll through the app adding things to bake to my favorites list. This is the first of many posts of experimental FoodGawker recipes. Might I add it was a complete success! ...Especially because it's mint. and chocolate. Sold.

Mixing the ingredients was a little give or take. The recipe calls for a certain amount of ingredients for the filling, but you end up adding more or less, depending on how it ends up mixing. I added a little extra water, and the inside was perfect! You should be able to roll it into one big ball and wrap it in wax paper for freezing. I used about 6-8 drops of peppermint oil I found at my Chef Central to flavor it.

I found it alot easier to roll the dough into balls and flatten them with my hands as opposed to rolling the dough out with a rolling pin and cutting them. Although they did not come out in perfect circles, they still tasted just as good. 

After freezing and dipping, I could NOT WAIT to try one of these babies out. I will never, EVER taste a York Peppermint Pattie the same again. These are so beyond good, especially frozen or cold. The batch amount only made 2 dozen of them for me (sand dollar size). Excuse the dipping job. These are kind of hard to dip without the bleed of chocolate onto the wax paper. Whatever. More chocolate :)

Thank you Cookie-Talk for this amazing recipe! These are definitely a great summer snack when frozen and perfect to melt in a cup of hot chocolate in the winter. Super Delicious!

Peppermint Patties

• 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 TB light corn syrup
• 1 1/2 TB water, plus more for spritzing if needed
• 1/2 tsp pure peppermint extract
• 1 TB shortening (preferably organic!)
• confectioner’s sugar, for kneading and rolling – I used about 2 TB
• 13 ounces 70%-cacao bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Mix together the powdered sugar, corn syrup, water, peppermint extract, and shortening in a mixer. It will take a while to come together and will still only be crumbly. If it is very dry where you are, spritz lightly with a little extra water. Once you start seeing large pieces come together, it is ready. You should be able to form a ball and hold its shape.

2. Knead dough with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and wrap in wax paper. Freeze for 15 minutes

3. This is when you roll the dough. Like I said, I preferred balling the dough and flattening it. You can also dust your workspace with powdered sugar, roll out like cookie dough, and use a cutter to cut the desired shape. 

4. Place back onto the tray and freeze for 4-6 hours or overnight. I was impatient and only froze them for about an hour, and they worked just as fine I assume. 

5. Dipping! This is pretty explanatory. Melt the chocolate and using a fork, cover the pattie in chocolate. Use a knife to scrape the pattie of the fork. After this, I refroze mine and kept them in a small bowl in the freezer, but if you visit the Cookie-Talk website, it says to let them set at room temperature. 

Cookie Dough Truffles

First of all, excuse the lack of my unprofessionalism here. I’m still getting used to this whole blog thing, so I’m hoping my first post isn’t terrible. I am part of a very huge, close family. Not only am I one of four children in my family, but most of my cousins are also one of four. My mom grew up with 3 bothers and 3 sisters, right smack in the middle of it all. My grandmother and grandfather still to this day, have parties and BBQ’s with all 7 kids, their spouses and 19 of us grandchildren. When I bake for my grandma’s gatherings, it means baking. A LOT.

Originally, for the 4^th of July party, I was going to bake cupcakes and decorate them like snow cones, inspired by Bakerella. But as I scrolled through her AMAZING blog, I found these Cookie Dough Truffles.

I decided to whip a quick batch of these up for my boyfriend’s 21^st birthday as a test run, and they were FLIPPING AMAZING and SO EASY! I brought a few extras home and they were gone in an hour. They are no bake and so quick, easy and ADORABLE. My first batch came out a bit better than the second, but I’ll still post pictures of mine anyway.

My cousin, Madison, usually helps bake and is all in when we ask if she wants to mix with her hands. She was dying to stick her fingers in the batter but this recipe called for an electric mixer. This was after mixing, we used a rubber spatula to fold in the chocolate chips.

This time, the batter was mixed a little TOO well and I had to actually freeze the dough chunks before rolling them into balls and freezing them again for dipping.

 While the dough sat in the freezer, Maddie and I wrote on the sticks! USA!

Melted the chocolate! I find it’s a lot easier to melt the chocolate over low heat on the stove and add a little vegetable oil to thin out the chocolate. 

Dipped and sprinkled by Maddie.  She is also usually the elected sprinkler girl.

July 5th, phone calls and facebook messages were non-stop all day telling me how good the pops were!  Heres the recipe from Bakerella. Thank you for your AMAZING recipe. This will definitely be made hundreds of times over! 

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles
from The Cookie Dough Lover’s Cookbook

My modifications are in green!

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
chocolate candy coating
popsicle sticks, cut in half (use kitchen scissors to make a clean, smooth cut)

1. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars with an electric mixer until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes)
2. Mix in milk and vanilla.
3. Add flour and salt and mix on low until combined.
4. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Chill dough in refrigerator for about 30 minutes until firm enough to roll or scoop into 1-inch balls.
6. Place rolled balls on a wax paper lined baking sheet and place in the freezer for at least 15 minutes. (I had mine in for about an hour so longer is okay, too)
7. Melt candy coating following instructions on the package. Remove a couple of balls from the freezer at a time and insert the cut stick into the ball. Dip in candy coating and let any excess fall off back into the bowl. For this step, I used regular bagged Toll House chocolate chips and melted them over the stove in a pot. I added small amounts of vegetable oil to thin out the chocolate. I think this tastes a little better in the long run than candy coating. Before dipping the entire ball into the chocolate, I dipped the end of the stick in chocolate so that it stuck a little better.
8.Add small sprinkles on top and place on wax paper to set. If the chocolate pools at the bottom of the ball, dot the balls on the wax paper until most of it is pulled off the ball and then place it on a clean spot of the wax paper to set.
9. Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to a week.