Chocolate Peanut Butter and Banana Bars

Something neat arrived in an intermodal container this week. (Yes, I had to look up "intermodal container" in order to know what to call them. Learned something new!) The container was marked as private with a Max Gross of 32.500 kgs (71.650 lbs). I don't think I can lift that...

It told me to reveal, so I carefully tugged at the Velcro strip and pulled out Reese Minis!

Tumble out little Minis! Warning: these are dangerous to have around because they are miniature versions of the Peanut Butter Cups and are unwrapped. You'll eat four or five and think nothing of it, but soon the whole bag is devoured!

I was sharing the cool packaging on twitter when Sarah from What Smells So Good? tweeted this:

Done! We're making those! (Click on the image above to see the recipe.) When I told Howard what we were making, he said, "what? We have to bake with it?" Yes. It became a challenge to NOT eat them as they are.

See me covering the black bottom here with more banana batter:

Then scoring out 16 bars with Reese Minis in the center:

Hey, what smells so good?

These bars! Only 2 Reese Minis high, hehee!

Before I ate every last crumb, I noticed this one:

Still showing the black bottom and top layer. =)

So readers, if you were given some Reese Minis, what would you make? Enter our Reese Minis Giveaway:

1. Please tell us what you would do with Reese Minis? Do you prefer them as they are? Or do you want to dress up a dessert or baked good? Maybe something savory? Leave your creative responses in the comments below.
   
2. Don't forget to leave me an e-mail address!
   
3. The Reese Minis Giveaway is open on March 5th 2011 until March 10th 2011. So you have plenty of time to enter! Comments submitted after 12 midnight EST on March 10th will not be considered.
4. The giveaway is only open to those with a Canadian mailing address, sorry folks!
   
5. A lucky winner will be randomly drawn.
   
6. The winner will be announced on March 11th on our blog.

Disclaimer: Thank you to Brittany from M Booth & Associates and those at Hershey's Canada for sending us a sample of Reese Minis and for providing the giveaway.

Happy Chinese New Year

We're celebrating the Year of the Rabbit with some more peanut butter chocolate crispy bars. They were so good that we made it again with more "crispy" to them. By some kind of luck, we had a snow day yesterday, so I made these early in the morning and popped them in the fridge to set. By late afternoon, half of the batch was gone.

This is currently the wallpaper on my laptop. Mmmm chocolate!

Such a good combination!

Let me out of the pan!

I packed up 3 boxes of these little treats. One for Howard's parents, one to stay at home, and one for me to snack on at work.

My dad had the brilliant idea of adding Osmanthus flowers to the crispy bars. So I made a batch without the peanut butter and chocolate topping for us to test. It is quite the success and I'm torn between which version I like better! The flowers give such a great aroma when you're combining it with the corn syrup mixture and the fragrant stays even after the bars are chilled!

Osmanthus Crispy Bars
Makes about one 8x8 square pan

1 3/4 cups of crisped rice cereal
1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of sugar
3 tablespoons of corn syrup
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons of dried Sweet Osmanthus flowers

1. Lightly spray a paper towel with nonstick cooking spray and use it to rub the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. Pour the water into a small saucepan. Gently add the sugar and corn syrup. Make sure none of the sugar or syrup gets on the sides of the pan. Use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture until combined.
3. Put a candy thermometer in the saucepan, cook over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Cook until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage, 235 degrees F.
4. Remove from heat, stir in the butter and Osmanthus until well combined.
   
5. Pour the mixture over the crispy rice cereal. Quickly stir until the cereal until it is thoroughly coated. Then press into the 8-inch square baking pan. Let the bars cool to room temperature, chill to set.
   

Peanut Butter Chocolate Crispy Bars

How are the holidays treating you? We've been spending time with family and friends non-stop since we got back from Las Vegas. I know I said I would have lots of time to finally tackle cake pops, but the days are just passing by!

For tonight's party, we made peanut butter chocolate crispy bars. You would think that something that doesn't require an oven would be easier to make, but nope, these took me just as long to "whip" up. But oh dear yum are they worth it!

Peanut Butter Crispy Bars
Adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
(Makes about 9 squares)

1 3/4 cups of crisped rice cereal
1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup of sugar
3 tablespoons of corn syrup
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
---
5 ounces of chopped milk chocolate
1 cup of creamy peanut butter
---
3 ounces of chopped milk chocolate
1 cup of Nutella
1/2 teaspoon of corn syrup

1. For the crispy crust: Lightly spray a paper towel with nonstick cooking spray and use it to rub the bottom and sides of an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. Pour the water into a small saucepan. Gently add the sugar and corn syrup. Make sure none of the sugar or syrup gets on the sides of the pan. Use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture until combined.
3. Put a candy thermometer in the saucepan, cook over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Cook until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage, 235 degrees F.
4. Remove from heat, stir in the butter and pour the mixture over the crispy rice cereal. Quickly stir until the cereal until it is thoroughly coated. Then press into the 8-inch square baking pan. Let the crust cool to room temperature.
   
   
5. For the chocolate peanut butter layer: In a large nonreactive metal bowl, stir together the chocolate and peanut butter.
6. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook (double boiler). Stir with a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth.
   
   
7. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for 30 seconds to cool slightly.
8. Pour the mixture over the cooled crust and refrigerate for about an hour or until the top layer hardens.
   
   
9. For the chocolate Nutella layer: In a large nonreactive metal bowl, stir together the chocolate, Nutella, and corn syrup.
10. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and cook (double boiler). Stir with a rubber spatula until the mixture is smooth.
11. Remove the bowl from the pan and stir for 30 seconds to cool slightly.
12. Pour the mixture over the chocolate peanut butter layer and refrigerate for about an hour or until the top layer hardens.
13. Cut into squares and serve!
    

I don't know how they make it looks so neat in the cookbooks photos, but at least I know mine taste and smell just as great. There are no more bars left, I think it's safe to say that these were a hit!