Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Payday Candy Bars

Today's activity was a 'baking' project. I use baking very loosely as there was no actual baking happening here today.

The recipe was as follows: (Original is in red and crossed out, I changed it to better fit the results desired)

Salted Peanuts Caramel Bar

2  3 cups salted dry roaster peanuts
2  1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips
3 2 tablespoons and 3/4 teaspoon butter
1 (14 oz) 3/4 (10.5 oz) can sweetened evaporated milk
1 (10.5 oz) 1/2 - 3/4  bag mini marshmallows (depending on fluff level desired)
1  1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

1. Heavily grease (make sure to get the sides!) a 9x13 8x11.5 baking dish with butter or cooking spray.
2. Spread 1 1 1/2 cup of peanuts in bottom of baking dish.
3. In microwave safe bowl, heat peanut butter chips and butter for 30 second intervals until melted. Stir between heatings.
4. Once melted, stir in salt and milk. Heat again for 1 minute.
5. Add Stir in marshmallows and combine until marshmallows are well coated. and heat for additional 30 seconds. Stir until smooth consistency is reached.
6. Pour mixture over peanuts and spread evenly in dish.
7. Top with 1 1 1/2 cup peanuts and lightly press down into mixture.
8. Refrigerate for 2 hours before cutting.
9. See bottom of the page for neat version.

It sounds simply enough. However some things were somehow different. We gathered all our ingredients.


Now there we had to use an 8x11.5 baking dish because my 9x13 is at my mother's house and I wasn't driving down there today. I guess it was a good thing to do since we needed more like 1 1/2 cups of peanuts to get good coverage of the bottom of the pan.


Gabee's favorite part is always pouring things into the bowl. So I let him do it all!



Peanut butter chips and butter. Then Microwaved. The problem here was the only kind of peanut butter chips I found at 3 different store was Reese's. Only when we were starting did I realize the bag stated there were approximately 1 2/3 cups of chips. It turned out being much closer to 1 1/2 cups.


We mixed in the milk and salt. Forgetting to minus about 1/4 from the rest of the ingredients since we were missing about 1/4 of the chips.


If you follow the directions exactly as stated, your mix should look like this.


However, I don't like marshmallows like this. Not in rocky road ice cream or anything else. So I decided to melt this mixture again for 30 seconds. Once I had stirred it well it was a nice consistency to pour. Over the peanuts it went.



Disregard me. Gabee really wanted to take a picture. I want you to see the consistency of the mix.


Once we were done spreading it on top of the peanuts we had to add more peanut to the top. Yet again it took more like 1 1/2 cups to get good coverage over the mix. Gabee proclaimed 'We used almost ALL the peanuts! I'll eat the rest!' then proceeded to devour the remaining 1/4 cup (or less) of the peanuts. We put it in the refrigerator and began the worst process with cooking, waiting.


We watch Despicable Me 2 to kill the time.


They were finally done and ready to eat!!! They look good. They were fairly easy to cut and get out of the pan. They probably would have been easier had I greased the sides of the pan. Not exactly Paydays though.


They were VERY soft. This was the result of me standing it up right on the paper towel. It arched over pretty quickly. They tasted way to fluffy and more of faintly peanut butter flavored marshmallow than peanut butter or caramel filling. If I make them again I think I am only going to add 1/2 a bag of marshmallows because I think even with the proper amount for the recipe they would still be too fluffy and marshmallow-y for my taste. They were also on the salty side, inside and out, so I'd lower or take out the salt completely.

The grand total on this also exceeded my $5 goal. They came in at $7.19

In short if I were to make them again I would change the following.

Salted Peanuts Caramel Bar

3 cups salted dry roaster peanuts
1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips
2 tablespoons and 3/4 teaspoon butter
3/4 (10.5 oz) can sweetened evaporated milk
1/2 - 3/4  bag mini marshmallows (depending on fluff level desired)
1/4 teaspoon salt (optional)

1. Heavily grease (make sure to get the sides!) a 8x11.5 baking dish with butter or cooking spray.
2. Spread 1 1/2 cup of peanuts in bottom of baking dish.
3. In microwave safe bowl, heat peanut butter chips and butter for 30 second intervals until melted. Stir between heatings.
4. Once melted, stir in salt and milk. Heat again for 1 minute.
5. Stir in marshmallows and heat for additional 30 seconds. Stir until smooth consistency is reached.
6. Pour mixture over peanuts and spread evenly in dish.
7. Top with 1 1/2 cup peanuts and lightly press down into mixture.
8. Refrigerate for 2 hours before cutting.

Well that's it for today. Tomorrow we are making a fort for the first time. Possibly making cupcakes too! (Friday is Gabee's 7th birthday!!!) Tata!

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