Peanut Butter Sauce

I don't really have an angle or story about this recipe. I made peanut butter sauce, and it was good.

This is one of the Maida recipes I would normally have overlooked because it's so simple and comes with so few headnotes.

But I'm really glad I made it: it's easy and delicious. Claire says it tastes like peanut brittle in sauce form. She's right: it's a lot like caramel sauce (especially since I used golden syrup instead of corn syrup) with the extra kick of peanut butter. Two great tastes that taste great together...

Here I'm serving it as Maida suggests: over (homemade) vanilla ice cream with sliced bananas. Yum. But Julia and I found another excellent use for this sauce: as a dip for sliced apples. If you like caramel apples and apples with peanut butter, then look no further.

So here's the recipe. Go get some good apples and/or ice cream and get ready for some simple deliciousness.

Peanut Butter Sauce

3/4 c. (8.25 oz.) corn syrup or golden syrup

1/4 c. (2 oz.) water

Pinch salt (I left this out because I think peanut butter is salty enough)

1/3 c. (3 oz.) smooth peanut butter

1 T. (0.5 oz.) butter

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

1/3 c. (2.7 oz.) whipping cream

Bring the syrup, water, and salt to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat a bit and let simmer for 5 minutes. Add the peanut butter and whisk until smooth (although Maida says it might look curdled). Remove from the heat and add the butter, whisking until it's melted. Beat the egg in a small bowl to mix, then add a bit of the warm peanut butter mixture, beating constantly. Then whisk the egg mixture into the peanut butter sauce. Put back on the stove over low heat and cook for 1-1/2 minutes, stirring and scraping with a rubber scraper, to cook the egg--the sauce does not thicken noticeably. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature. Stir in the vanilla and cream. Chill until very cold and serve over ice cream and/or with sliced apples.