Alfred A. Knopf Peanut Butter Candy

I've been looking forward to and dreading this recipe for a while. Looking forward to because, well, look at that ingredient line-up (do you like the powdered sugar wrestler?)! English digestive biscuits (graham crackers, more or less), crunchy peanut butter straight from the USA (Julia orders it from her friends whenever they're there), Valrhona chocolate straight from a run to G. Detou because I was out. Butter.

Dreading because, well, you see the ingredient line-up. Eight ounces each of butter, sugar, cookies, chocolate. A bit more even of peanut butter. That's going to taste good. Maybe a bit too good...

OK, so the bottom layer is not very photogenic. Never fear--it's delicious. If you like crunchy buttery peanut candy, that is. And it takes about 2 minutes to put together: once the butter is melted and the graham crackers are crushed, you're pretty much done.

Then all you have to do is melt some chocolate. This is milk chocolate with a 40% cocoa content, and it was perfect. If you don't like things too sweet, I would maybe use 1/3 dark chocolate (start melting that first) and 2/3 milk chocolate. If you like things sweet, get out the Hershey's.

You pour that on top and refrigerate it.

Then you cut it into tiny squares and begin taste-testing. And have your children taste test and say, "Oh, my gosh, Mommy, I love you!" And send said children off to parties laden with this candy because it must not be allowed to stay in the house.

I'm pretty sure I've had this kind of candy before. It's sweet and very rich--like a really excellent Reese's cup. The piece and a half I ate were delicious, but I don't think I'll be able to eat much more--it's just too much for me. That's probably a good thing.

So here's the recipe. Make it when you have 5 minutes and the right ingredients and a heap of willpower.

Alfred A. Knopf Peanut Butter Candy

1 cup (8 oz.) melted butter

2 cups (8 oz.) graham cracker crumbs

2 cups (8 oz.) powdered sugar (Maida calls for 2-1/2 cups, or 10 oz.)

1 cup (9.25 oz.) chunky peanut butter

8 oz. milk chocolate

Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil. In a large bowl (maybe the one you melted the butter in), mix together the melted butter, graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and peanut butter until well combined. Spread into a smooth layer in the prepared pan. Melt the chocolate in the microwave--one minute in 30-second pulses should be enough. Pour the melted chocolate over the peanut butter mixture. Spread in a smooth layer over the peanut butter mixture. Refrigerate for at least an hour, then unmold from the pan/foil and cut into small squares. I like this cold, but Maida says to serve it at room temperature. Either way, enjoy--and give this away fast!

Spiced (Hot Peppered) Pecans

There's not a lot to say about this recipe, except that it's really good and you should try it.

I combined two recipes in the book: the standard and the hot peppered pecans, using a bit less pepper than Maida's husband seems to require. These pecans are quite sugary--kind of like a praline--but the spices and pepper counteract that really nicely so that you get a really complex and even somewhat surprising flavor.

As Maida suggests, these make a great nibble with drinks, and they also make a great nibble when you're just hanging out in the kitchen. So beware.

These pecans are a bit fussy, in that they require the use of a candy thermometer. I was worried about that, because I can never seem to get an accurate reading, but I stopped cooking just shy of the "soft ball" point, and it worked out just as Maida told me it would.

Still, if I want to make candied nuts again, I'll probably use Elise's recipe for sugared pecans, which is a lot simpler and a bit less sweet. But I'll add pepper.

Here's the recipe. Make it for guests or for gifts--or yourself.

Spiced (Hot Peppered) Pecans

2 c. (7 oz.) pecan halves

1 c. (7 oz.) sugar

Generous pinch coarse salt

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. ginger

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/2 t. ground red pepper (not cayenne! I used piment d'esplette. Ancho chile powder might also work)

1/2 t. ground black pepper

1/4 t. cream of tartar

1/4 c. water

1/2 t. vanilla

Heat the oven to 350. Put the pecan halves on a cookie sheet or shallow baking dish and let toast 5-7 minutes, watching carefully. Turn off the oven and crack it open, but let the pecans stay in the oven to stay warm.

Get out a small saucepan and a medium saucepan. Put the sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, peppers, cream of tartar, and water in the small saucepan. Stir over high heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Put in a candy thermometer and turn the heat down to medium. Let boil without stirring until the syrup reaches 238 F (soft ball stage).

When the syrup is almost at temperature, take the pecans out of the oven and put into the medium saucepan. When the syrup reaches the right temperature, take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour the syrup over the pecans and start stirring until the syrup turns into a dullish sugary coating--this could take about 2-3 minutes, but it didn't seem to take that long for me. Turn the nuts out onto a sheet of parchment paper to cool. Store airtight, preferably out of easy reach .

Everyone's Favorite Fudge

I have to say I wasn't looking forward to making this recipe: I don't really like fudge. I associate fudge with overpriced candy shops in touristy areas like Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. It's often way too sweet and has off flavors probably due to margarine or artificial flavors or the two. Bleaugh.

Another issue with fudge: it's hard to photograph. I took at least six photos of the finished product, and this terrible shot was the best of the bunch.

Another reason for skepticism: funky ingredients like evaporated milk and marshmallow fluff. Who cooks with marshmallow fluff? Even Maida seems skeptical. She claims to have put this recipe in her American Desserts book after people complained that her classic recipe was prone to failure--overcooking, undercooking, and (the bad kind of) graininess.

A word on marshmallow fluff: this is an Exotic Food Item here. I had to ask Sami to take me to the local hypermarché so that I could shell out 7 Euros or something for this jar of fluff. The sacrifices we make for art...

Do I sound whiny? Maybe that's because all my delicious fudge is almost gone. When I was dreading making it, I forgot an important factor: although I was using marshmallow fluff, I was also using French butter. And French chocolate.

I even cut down on the sugar a little bit, and the fudge still came out with a nice, smooth texture.

And this was really easy, as promised: put ingredients in pot, boil for a while, take off heat, add chocolate and nuts. Stir and chill. Try to resist.

I made this for a gathering we had with friends--six adults and six mostly teenaged children. There were six or seven snack-dinner type items and then four desserts, including this fudge and the banana pudding that I hope to post about soon. I figured, hey, teenagers, they'll eat anything, so they can eat the fudge if it's not that great. Well, what I noticed was the adults going to get a piece of fudge. Then going back for another piece. And then very casually wandering back to the dessert table for another one. I'm not entirely convinced the kids had a fair shot at the fudge. I'm just glad I gave this fudge a chance.

Here's the recipe. Use the best chocolate you can, and be sure to share.

Everyone's Favorite Fudge

2/3 c. (5.3 oz.) evaporated milk

7 oz. marshmallow fluff/creme (jar sizes may vary: check yours carefully!)

1/4 c. (2 oz.) butter

scant 1-1/2 c. (9.5 oz.) sugar

1/4 t. salt

12 oz. semisweet chocolate--chips or cut-up bars

1 t. vanilla

2 c. (7 oz.) walnuts or toasted pecans (Maida says these are optional, but in my book, they aren't)

Line an 8-inch square pan with parchment or foil. Get out a medium to large saucepan and put the milk, marshmallow fluff, butter, sugar, and salt in it. Put the pan over medium-low heat and start stirring. You want to bring this to a boil without letting the bottom burn, which is rather a tricky thing. When it comes to a full boil (this takes forever, and as the recipe on the marshmallow fluff jar stated, "be careful not to mistake air bubbles for boiling."), set the timer for 5 minutes and keep stirring occasionally. If you have a thermometer, check the fudge at the end just to be sure--it should reach about 226 degrees F. Mine wasn't quite that hot at the end of the cooking time. There will be some caramelization as it boils, and that's OK--just stir to make sure nothing burns.

Take the pot off the heat and add the chocolate; stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Now add the vanilla and nuts. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Let cool and then chill--this did well on my cool balcony.

When you're ready to serve this, use a long, sharp knife to cut it into small pieces--ours were about 1/2-inch square. Prepare to become very popular indeed.

Apricot and Date Rocky Road

Food shopping is one of my major hobbies/activities here. Somedays it's what keeps me going--when I'm feeling a bit culture shocked, there's nothing like having a friendly interaction with a market stall person and picking up some beautiful produce.

Although the outdoor market in St. Germain is quite large, I've chosen my regular stands, and the merchants seem to recognize and appreciate that. They greet me more or less effusively, joke with me, correct my French, ask me what's for dinner. I try to stay on their good side by using a list so that I don't waste their time and giving them exact change. Soon I'll probably start bringing them cookies, just like David Lebovitz. But in the meantime, I see the market experience as part of my linguistic and cultural education. And we eat pretty darned well, too.

So, you say, what has this to do with Maida Heatter recipes? Well, look above. All these ingredients for the rocky road were carefully sourced from the market or from local shops. Those are hand-crafted marshmallows you see there. And single-origin chocolate. This is some high-class candy I'm making!

I have to say that I was skeptical about this recipe, until I went to my favorite chocolatier and discovered these really yummy chocolate, fruit, and nut clusters. His had apricots, candied ginger, orange peel, and almonds. Yum. So I figured this could be really good as well.

It's not a difficult recipe to make, once you've cut up all your ingredients. And it's rather festive as well.

I don't have an 8-inch pan, so I improvised. It was fine, but perhaps in a more enclosed space the chocolate would have distributed itself more evenly among all the fruits and nuts.

But in general, there were a couple of problems with this candy: 1) it didn't cut neatly; 2) it was therefore too easy to take little nibbles. Julia and I especially couldn't keep our hands off of it. But we agreed that if I were to make this again, I would leave out the dates for more nuts and/or a different kind of dried fruit. The dates were a bit too sweet to be covered in chocolate.

So here's the recipe. Get the best ingredients from your favorite merchants and try to give this away before you eat it all.

Apricot and Date Rocky Road

about 14 large marshmallows

10 pitted dates

10-12 dried apricots (I think the Mediterranean kind might be best for this use)

(about 1/3 cup chopped candied ginger)

1 lb. milk chocolate

6 oz. toasted pecan halves

Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil or parchment. Using a pair of kitchen shears, cut the marshmallows into quarters. Do the same with the dates; cut the apricots into strips. Melt the chocolate very carefully, either in a double boiler on the stove or in 20-second intervals in the microwave. Milk chocolate burns easily! Pour about 1/3 of the chocolate into the foil-lined pan and spread it to make a thin layer. Lay the marshmallows on top of that, then the dates, apricots, ginger, and 2/3 the pecans. Now carefully pour the remaining chocolate on top, trying to let it seep between the fruit and nuts. It may not cover everything perfectly. Working quickly before the chocolate hardens, arrange the remaining pecan halves over top. Maida says to refrigerate this, but it hardened nicely on my kitchen countertop. After it's had some time to sit and become firm, remove it from the pan and peel off the foil. With a large, sharp knife, cut the candy into squares. Store in Tupperware or wrap individually or put on a tray and cover with plastic. Tell yourself it's health food because of all the fruits and nuts.

Brownie Truffles

Julia is here in Pontlevoy visiting for her 2-week spring vacation. Early on I showed her the next five recipes planned for the blog and asked her which one(s) she wanted me to make while she was here. "The Brownie Truffles. Definitely."
There's some more good stuff coming up for sure, but she was so right about this recipe. It's rich but not too sweet and combines fruit and nuts and chocolate very nicely. It left me wondering why I hadn't made these before.

The recipe begins with a brownie, but not just any brownie. This is a brownie stuffed with booze-soaked dried apricots. What's not to like?
Alicia and I grew up with dried apricots--our maternal grandparents had a large backyard with many fruit trees, most of them apricots. The Blenheims--the good kind. So every summer we would trek out to my grandparent's house about once a week and "cut cots." We would sit in what my grandmother called "the outie," a kind of glorified tool shed/gazebo, all around a big table, and we would cut buckets and buckets of apricots in half and put them on trays for my grandfather to set up for drying. Of course there was a lot of snacking, and the less-than-perfect apricots would go into the "jam cots" or the "pie cots" bowls, but my grandparents still made a whole lot of dried apricots for us to take home and keep in the freezer. My mother would always make "Golden Nuggets," a Betty Crocker recipe for cookies with coconut and dried apricots, at Christmas. Yum. All of this to say that dried apricots are a taste of childhood for me.

If you look carefully, you'll see that there used to be brownie batter in this bowl. My helper got a bit carried away in the cleaning department. I don't blame her.

OK, here we are ready to dip the brownies. You see that we have many shapes and sizes. Maida says to cut the brownies into 16 squares, but we were a bit more dainty. Also Julia thought that truffles should be round, so she rolled some into balls.

The dipping process. We didn't have nearly enough walnuts, so we switched to sliced almonds. The walnuts were better, though the almonds were OK.

Mmmm...truffles. And my hand, coated in chocolate nutty goodness. That was a delightful clean-up task.
We loved these a lot. So much so that we forced ourselves to give them away to anyone who would take them. These would make a great holiday goodie, but why wait?

Here's the recipe.

Brownie Truffles

4 oz. dried apricots (get the Blenheim kind from Trader Joe's if you can)
3 T. Grand Marnier or Cointreau (I used Calvados because it's all I had; it was fine)
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
4 oz. (1 stick) butter
Pinch salt
1 scant cup (6.5 oz.) sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 t. vanilla
1/4 c. (1.25 oz.) unsifted flour

Soak the apricots the night before: Use scissors to cut them into thin strips. Put them in a jar with a lid and pour on the booze. Let them sit, stirring and shaking when you think of it, overnight.
Now make the brownies. Heat the oven to 325. Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil or parchment and butter that. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large microwave-safe bowl in the microwave for about a minute to a minute and a half, stirring after every 30 seconds. Stir in the salt, sugar, and the eggs, one at a time. Then stir in the vanilla and the flour. Finally, pour in every drop of the apricots and booze. Stir that and scrape into the prepared pan. Bake for about 25 minutes (Maida says 40-45, but really, check after 20), or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool to room temperature, then chill/freeze until firm.
When the brownies are nice and cold, get the coating ready:

1 lb. walnuts, chopped fine but not ground (really, you'll probably need most if not all of this)
1 lb. milk chocolate (I used a combination of milk and dark and probably somewhat shy of a pound. You don't need the full pound and a half Maida calls for, in my humble opinion.)
6 T. (3 oz.) Crisco or butter (I didn't use this. I imagine it makes the chocolate coating a bit thinner and easier to use. But we had no problems with pure chocolate.)

Get the brownies out and cut into 16 small or 32 tiny squares. Put them on a long sheet of waxed or parchment paper.
Put the walnuts in a pie plate or other wide, shallow bowl. Melt together the chocolate and Crisco in 30-second intervals in the microwave. Be careful because milk chocolate burns very easily.
Now find a helper, if possible, and make an assembly line: dip the brownies first in the chocolate, and then roll them in the nuts. We used a fork for dipping and hands for rolling. When all the brownies have been dipped/rolled and you've done your share of quality control, you'll probably want to put them in the freezer for a bit to firm up. This doesn't take more than half an hour. Then let them come to room temperature and serve. And then chase random people down in the street to offer them truffles because They Must Go.

Texas Truffles: Texas-sized treats

So there was one recipe in Maida's book that I was sure I should make before I left for France: Texas Truffles. Marshmallows, marshmallow fluff, sweetened condensed milk--not exactly French ingredients, though they can be found. Also pecans. Two pounds. This called for a trip to Sam's Club.

And I'm glad I made these before Christmas. They made great gifts. People LOVED them! They're big and sweet and nutty and have that whole rocky road thing going on. Everyone I gave them to dived into them and really seemed to enjoy the experience. I didn't actually eat one but enjoyed some of the fudge that got stuck to the edge of the bowl with some extra pecans.
Bonus: these are very, very easy to make. Maida says it takes 2 hours, and maybe it does if you hover around and reshape them until they're perfect, as she suggests. However, if you dip the marshmallow once and declare it good, this takes about 15-20 minutes. I had planned to make this a project to do with our French exchange student Marjorie. We got started, then Sami took her on a test drive of the car she's borrowing, and by the time she returned, Claire and I had finished. Oh, well...
So this is how the process works: you melt some chocolate with marshmallow fluff and sweetened condensed milk, in the microwave, of course.

Then you dip marshmallows in that fudgy goodness.

They get very thickly coated. Then they go in for a coating of nuts.


Look at that marshmallow swimming in a sea of pecans. Finally they chill out on some waxed paper before going into little candy cups (actually, big muffin cups).
Then they're done. And they keep really well at room temp.
Maybe it's too late to make these for Christmas, but keep this one in mind for next year! Easy and popular--how can you go wrong?

Texas Truffles

About 2 lbs. pecans, chopped (I had about a cup left over, which I used in cookies later in the week)
18 oz. milk chocolate (I used about 12 oz. milk chocolate and 6 oz. dark chocolate to cut the sweetness)
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 7-oz. jar marshmallow fluff
36-40 marshmallows

Melt the chocolate with the milk and fluff in a large microwave-safe bowl in the microwave--it'll take 1-1/2 to two minutes, in 30-second intervals. The mixture will be quite thick. In the meantime, put the chopped pecans in a pie plate. Also line a big baking sheet with waxed paper. Get out a big roasting fork and a rubber spatula. Do not spear the marshmallow--just use the fork to kind of cradle the marshmallow while you coat it in fudge. Then let it drip off before you drop it into the pecans and roll it around. Repeat until you're out of fudge, which will be the first thing to run out. Put in fancy muffin liners and give away. Feel generous and festive.

EZ Truffles

This is such an easy recipe--little work, big impact. It's basically just ganache, which is chocolate melted with cream and/or butter. This recipe has both. It was the perfect recipe for me to make this weekend, since between jetlag and a trip to Tuscaloosa and the beginning of a new session at the ELI, I had very little time to spend in the kitchen. I think it involved about 20 minutes of hands-on time, with lots of wait time in between. Perfect.


This Valrhona chocolate had been waiting patiently in my stash for a chance to really shine in a recipe. Since it wasn't enough for even a quarter recipe, though, I augmented with the Trader Joe's. It made for a very bittersweet truffle. Claire said it needed sugar.

Here's the chocolate, melted down with cream and butter to luscious smoothness. That sat in the fridge for a good 36 hours.

Here are some unlovely (but delicious) mounds of truffle. They went back in the freezer for a couple of hours.

Here are the finished truffles, rolled in ground toasted hazelnuts and placed in cute candy cups. The recipe has you roll them in unsweetened cocoa powder but offers this as an alternative. I think that with the very bittersweet chocolate I chose, cocoa powder would have taken them over the edge into bitterness territory. Besides, chocolate and hazelnut--what's not to like? Maybe subbing Frangelico for the rum would make the combination even more pronounced. Either way, it's lovely to have an elegant little snack stashed in the freezer. And it's a good thing that I only made a quarter recipe!

Here's the recipe I made. It made about a dozen little truffles.

Joan and Judy's Truffles

3.5 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
4-1/2 T. cream
1-1/2 T. butter, room temperature, cut into about 6 pieces
1 T. dark rum (or any other liquor you like)
About 1/4 c. (1 oz.) hazelnuts, toasted and ground

Microwave the chocolate and cream about 45 seconds (stop and stir after 30 seconds) and stir until smooth and melted. Stir in the butter until it's melted, then add the rum. Refrigerate or freeze this until firm (or until you're ready to make truffles). Get out a baking sheet and line it with waxed paper, then spoon out mounds of chocolate about the size you would like to eat. Put that back in the freezer for a while. You can toast (don't forget to rub off the skins) and grind the hazelnuts while you're waiting for the truffles to freeze. Get some candy cups ready. Then take the truffle mounds out of the freezer. Roll each one into a ball, and then roll the ball in hazelnuts and nestle the truffles in the candy cups. Pack them into a Tupperware and put them back in the freezer. Get them out to serve with coffee after dinner or any time you need chocolate therapy.