J@H - Brownie Donuts with Peanut Butter Glaze

I have been looking forward to making my own donuts all year. Yes, I realize that I could have made donuts at any time, but it's been a crazy year and I haven't made breakfast once this year. I really need to make myself some French Toast this weekend.

A few years ago, I made a classic fried donut. This time I decided to go with a healthier cooking option and baked them. Rather than going completely healthy, I packed these with chocolate and covered them in peanut butter.

These donuts are dense and chocolatey, I can't responsibly tell you to eat these for breakfast.  I would suggest that you should make these and have them for dessert under a big scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I think that I need to make another batch of donuts. Something that is a little lighter and more breakfast appropriate. Maybe something packed with oranges or bananas?

Who am I kidding? These are delicious and probably just as good for you as having Pop Tarts for breakfast! The peanut butter frosting is the perfect topping to these dense brownie donuts. Get yourself a whole bunch of chocolate and butter and make these donuts! Then bring them to work and make all your coworkers happy (and fat).

One Year Ago: Loaded Potato Soup
Two Years Ago: Halloween Mallomars
Three Years Ago: Butternut Squash Cake
Four Years Ago: Pumpkin Raisin Muffins
Five Years Ago: Pear Cake with Pine Nuts

J@H - Snickers Bars

Sorry for my lack of posting lately. My kitchen is currently sitting in my living room.

Over the past year, the boyfriend and I have been updating, renovating and decorating our first house. We have been putting off renovating the kitchen because it is the biggest job in the house. We pulled up the old flooring (three layers of tile, Peel & stick tile and linoleum) on Saturday. Re-tiling of the kitchen has taken up the past few days with grout planned for the weekend. We still have to choose a paint color, paint and then install a backsplash. We'll probably be out of the kitchen for another week or so.

Luckily, I had time to put the finishing touches on these bad boys before pulling the appliances out of the kitchen. I've been looking forward to recreating this classic candy in my kitchen. It took a few tries to get the layers right, but the final product is so fantastic!

Rather than coating the entire candy in chocolate, I went with the simpler option and built the candy bar in layers in a 8x8-inch pan. First went in a layer of chocolate. Next I made and pressed in the peanut butter nougat. After setting overnight, I made three different batches of caramel before finally making one that I was happy with. I stirred in the peanuts and poured it over the top. Once the caramel set up, I added the final layer of chocolate.

Do these bars taste exactly like a Snickers Bar? No. But they do taste delicious. They are also a labor of love. There are several other Snickers Bars recipes out there on the internet that are easier to put together. If you want to make everything from scratch and avoid ingredients like marshmallow fluff and store-bought caramels, give this a try!

Though, after all the trouble I had with the caramel layer, I might go with the easy way out next time!

One Year Ago: Hazelnut Cream Cheese Brownies
Two Years Ago: Peach Melba Linzer Bars
Three Years Ago: Gorgonzola & Leek Risotto
Four Years Ago: Orange Cinnamon Bread
Five Years Ago: Spanish Chicken with Mustard-Green Onion Sauce

Peanut Butter-Banana Bread

I thought that nothing could be better than my original banana bread.  Until I made it into coconut French toast.  Then I thought that was the most amazing version of the bread, until I made this loaf.

Peanut butter and Chocolate Fudge

I'm going to need to up my workout routine.

Triple-Peanut and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks the following...  This is the best time of year because you have such a great excuse to bake dozens and dozens of cookies.  Seriously!  You bring a batch of cookies to the office in June and people are all "Cookies?  Were you bored this weekend?"  Even holiday-themed cookies through the year (heart cookies in February, pumpkin cookies in October) raise an eyebrow of some people. 

It's in December that I can freely bake to my hearts desire without question from my coworkers.  No, I'm not trying to slowly poison you/make you fat.  It's the holidays!  You're supposed to eat lots of cookies.  Although, I think that if I feed my coworkers lots of cookies, I will eventually look thinner in comparison... 

I was very happy to take part in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap again this year.  It gave me yet another reason to bake cookies... and raise money for charity!  Be sure to head over to Love and Olive Oil or The Little Kitchen and check out the whole group of cookie swappers!

For the cookie swap, I decided to make use my favorite flavor combination - chocolate and peanut butter!  Happy Holidays everyone and I hope you eat lots of cookies!

Chocolate Peanut Pralines

Last week, the days seemed to drag on.  The hours at work seemed endless and Friday took twice as long to get here.  It was just one of those weeks.  A week that required a relaxing weekend at the very end of it.  What did boyfriend and I decide to do in order to wash away the previous five days?  We went tubing.

If you are in the New Jersey/Pennsylvania/New York area this summer, I would recommend you set aside some time  and head to the Delaware River.  Boyfriend and I were a little wary as we got to the River.  Would it be cold?  Is the river deep?  Will I really need this life preserver?  What was the compelling story that the river tube staff member didn't tell me that would make me want to actually wear this life preserver?  I feel a little strange wearing a bikini in the middle of rural New Jersey.

When we stepped in the water, all my fears were set aside.  At this time of the year, the Delaware River is like a bath tub.  It is slow-moving and hip-deep along most of the tube riding route.  Most of all, it is the most relaxing way to spend an afternoon.  Although boyfriend and I apparently can't find the current in a river to save our lives.  We slowly floated along as everyone else in a tube passed us by.

The one fun thing about floating along in the slow current?  You find stuff on the bottom of the river!  Boyfriend and I rescued a fishing weight, a rubber wristband and a set of car keys from the riverbed.  If you're out there and find your long lost keys in the mail one day, that was us!  (and Shop Rite!)

So boyfriend and I started our workweek yesterday refreshed, relaxed and a little sun kissed.  Nothing like floating down a river for a few hours and enjoying a riverside barbecue to melt away the stress from the previous week.  Ahhh, floating away...

Ganduja & Caramel Candy Bars

Welcome to a new week everyone!  I hope that everyone is safe and sound from this weekends East Coast hurricane.  I am currently still in Buffalo, since my return flight to New York was cancelled yesterday.  That's okay though, it means I get to spend an extra day with my family and the puppies.  The crazy, lunatic puppies. 

They are currently running around the kitchen with me.  Busy romping around, playing with toys and biting each other.  Generally with one puppy you get used to keeping all of your precious things a few feet off of the ground.  This keeps them from geting little teeth marks all over them.  With two puppies, you have to keep up with the nibbling on things and a constant puppy fight.

These puppies are totally spoiled, with more toys than I had when I was little.  There are even doubles of all the toys, so that they can each have their own.  The problem?  You guessed it.  One puppy wants what the other one has.  They will even taunt each other with toys.  One puppy walking up to the other an waving her toy around until the second puppy leaps at it.  Then it's an all-out puppy war over the toy, then the toy is forgotten and they just bite each other.  Puppy war!

According to the vet, they're just like little kids.  Unless one of them comes to you bleeding, they're just fine.

Peanut Brittle

This one's for my mom!  If there's anyone out there who I know will be thrilled with this recipe, it's my momma!  I've been putting off this traditional candy treat because I wasn't sure I'd be able to reproduce that classic flavor.  Peanut brittle has such a specific taste, if it isn't right, then it isn't peanut brittle.  Luckily, this recipe turned out dead on prefect.

I made a small batch this time, just to be sure that I got it right.  The only problem that I had with this recipe had nothing to do with anything that I did.  I'm sure that most of you living in the states got to enjoy the fabulous heat wave that rolled across the country.  Making hard candy in this type of hot and humid weather is not a good idea.  I made these on a dry day, but then the humidity rolled in and the candy made it's best attempts at sticking together.  What was a girl to do?  Eat it!