Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Riley's Chocolatey-Peanut Butter Balls of Ultimate Goodness

Before Christmas, Riley was talking about a dessert that he really wanted to make. It had dark chocolate on the inside, peanut butter cookie dough over that, then covered in more chocolate and sugar. He kept talking about it, so I decided to look up some recipes to see if there were some I could combine to make this dessert of his a reality. I talked over some options for each layer with him, and the following was the final product.

**I did not name these.....** ;0)

For the center, we decided to do a dark chocolate truffle. We needed:
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate
4 oz. bittersweet chocolate
almost, but not quite 1/2 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 TBS. light corn syrup
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbs. butter, cut up into small pieces


First, Riley broke up the chocolate and melted it in the microwave for thirty seconds at a time, stirring in between.
 



Once the chocolate is melted completely, set it aside and heat the whipping cream up in the microwave for 45 seconds.


Once that's warm, add in the corn syrup, salt, and vanilla. Then stir well.



Pour the milk mixture into the chocolate and cover with saran wrap. Then wait three minutes.



Stir the chocolate mix until well blended, adding in chunks of butter one at a time until they are melted. Then pour into a 9x13 pan sprayed with cooking spray.




After it is spread evenly, leave it out on the counter for 2 hours, then place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, but overnight is better.

When the truffle chocolate is ready, make the peanut butter dough. Riley really wanted it to be dough, not cooked, so I found an eggless recipe that was safe to eat non-cooked.
We needed:
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 butter; softened
1 1/2 tsp. whipping cream
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

**The next time I make these, I will double the dough recipe**


Mix all ingredients in a mixer until it forms into dough.






Riley tested.....


Riley approved!


The next part is the fun part. Take small chunks of the truffle chocolate and form into balls: 




Take some dough and flatten it out. Place the chocolate in the center and wrap the dough around it:





After the balls are all made, it's the final step. Covering the balls in chocolate almond bark. Riley wanted to cover them with sugar on top of that, but I persuaded him to just sprinkle some blue (his favorite color) sugar sprinkles on top.


We broke up the chocolate almond bark into squares and melted them in the microwave. I used a plastic cup because I'm lazy and I can just throw it away when I'm done. Melted almond bark is hard to clean out of bowls!! ;0)


Riley liked dipping the balls in chocolate and then putting them on waxed paper to dry.


But he made sure to sprinkle on the blue sugar before they were too dry!



Once they were all dry, Riley got to taste test the first one.



He declared it delicious! And they were!! They were SO good!! :0)
Good dessert invention Riley!!

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