Parties tend to sneak up on me during the summer. Suddenly you have to whip up something but you don’t have a ton of time and don’t feel like sweating it out in the kitchen. Luckily I have a solution if should you find yourself in such a predicament.

I discovered this yummy sounding but super fast Peanut Butter Pie on Allrecipes. If this doesn’t cure your summer entertaining woes, I don’t know what will. With five ingredients and minutes to come together, you only have to leave enough time for it to chill in the fridge so it sets up. Lucky for you dessert comes at the end of the party, so even if you don’t make it til the last minute, it should be ready to go by the time everyone has a hankering for dessert!

The only change I might make is that I think a graham cracker pie crust would taste better with this than a regular pie crust. It would be like one giant chocolate peanut butter s’more! Yummm!

Get the recipe at Allrecipes and have a super awesome 4th of July!

Peanut Butter Bum Bar. Say that three times fast!

Yeah… I couldn’t do it either.

I picked up this Peanut Butter Bum Bar by Luminous Kitchen when we visited The Southport Grocery in Chicago. Its surface is bejeweled with chocolate chips, nuts and dried fruit, so I had high hopes for its flavor.

I’ve spoken many times before of my frequent disappointment with bland, oddly textured or just plain icky granola and protein bars, but thankfully this one delivered. It’s kind of like the love-child of an Odwalla Bar and a PowerBar. With some bites you taste chocolate chips, dried fruit or big pieces of nuts, and then other bites consist of a more blended flavor a la PowerBar. It’s also chewy like a PowerBar and a little dry and dense, but not unpleasantly so. There’s a little fruitiness to the bar and not just in the bites with the dried cranberries. You don’t get much of a punch from the chocolate chips, but maybe that’s because they’re non-dairy?

The one thing that confuses me about this bar - and this must be a type-o - is that the Nutrition label claims that the bar has two servings and that each serving is 225 calories making it an overall 550 calories for a 3.7 oz bar. That can’t be right… right? I’m also pretty sure that they forgot to mention dried cranberries and nuts in the ingredients list. At first I thought I was crazy but this label appears to be playing tricks on me.

One thing I do like about their label is the friendly little note from the bars makers:

“Peanut butter is full of high quality plant protein and beneficial unsaturated fats. Like all vegan foods, it contains no cholesterol. Luminous Kitchens herein consecrates the time honored union of dark chocolate and peanut butter. Enjoy! Pick up some bum bars for friends and family, or just drop by to say hello at luminouskitchens.com - thanks for your support!”

“…the time honored union of dark chocolate and peanut butter…” I like that!

Overall, it’s a good bar and I would buy it again. I can’t say I like it better than my beloved Odwalla Bar, but I definitely enjoy supporting the smaller companies like Luminous Kitchen. It is also nice to know that unlike with the aforementioned mass market brands, when you eat a Peanut Butter Bum Bar, you are enjoying, “animal free, refined sugar free, handmade organic goodness.” The company also uses, “only whole and unprocessed ingredients, about 90% of which are organic.” This bar will make both your tummy and your conscience feel good!

Buy yourself a Peanut Butter Bum Bar online at Luminous Kitchens!

I have been a fan of Stonyfield Farm Yogurt for a long time. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I survived my college years on a habitual diet of Odwalla Bars, Peanut Butter & Co Peanut Butters, Pepperidge Farm Soft-Baked Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Stonyfield Farm Yogurt. So you can imagine my excitement when I found out about their new Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt! It’s tangy with a creamy texture, making it perfect for dips, smoothies, baked goods, breakfast or… anything really.

For what it’s worth, I don’t usually like ‘healthy’ baked goods. If I’m going to indulge in dessert, I want to go all the way and often I find that healthy ingredient substitutions generally result in a compromise in flavor. However, I’m happy to say that Stonyfield’s new yogurt proved me wrong and stands as a fantastic ingredient for baking without losing any of the fun!

I chose to try it out on Susan Spicer’s Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes, which is a familiar recipe in my kitchen. It calls for Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting, which is really the perfect refreshing accompaniment for her rich cupcakes. I figured that a frosting made with tangy yogurt wouldn’t be far off from a frosting made with tangy cream cheese.

I was happy to discover that both the original frosting recipe and mine are equally delicious, however the Oikos yogurt makes it a LOT healthier. Eight ounces of cream cheese is 800 calories (640 from fat) while eight ounces of Oikos Vanilla Yogurt is 166 calories (0 from fat)! I’m not one to calorie count if it means I’ll be missing out on a delicious dessert, but considering you’re not losing any flavor with the healthy alternative, it seems silly to go with the higher calorie option. Another plus is that the yogurt is a cool and refreshing topping for a cupcake made in the summer months, and you don’t have to sweat putting on that bikini after eating one!

FYI, it should be mentioned that in the same way that you have to love cream cheese in order to love cream cheese frosting, you have to love yogurt to love this frosting. I tried it out on a yogurt lover who loved it and a yogurt hater who well… you get my drift.

I hope you try Stonyfield Farm’s new Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt and enjoy it as a healthy alternative for this recipe and many others!

Recipe after the break!

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Hi there! That was a longer break than usual for me - sorry!

Despite my absence, I have been up to just as much baking and chocolate peanut butter consumption as usual. I have also been chatting with the wonderful Jessie Oleson of Cakespy who kindly informed me of some fantastic treats on our very own glorious NJ shore!

On a recent visit to the east coast, she stopped by an adorable little bakery called The Scone Pony and shortly thereafter posted a glowing review of their baked goods. In addition to taking a liking to their adorably punny name, she also enjoyed the Peanut Butter Pie w/ Chocolate Ganache Topping (pictured above) and, “A simple but perfect peanut butter cookie sandwich filled with a sweet peanut butter cream (kind of a fancy Nutter Butter).” I think it’s safe to say that we have similar tastes!

With the summer just barely kicked off, it’s comforting knowing that Taste Tester and I have plenty of time to fit a shore trip into our schedules in order to get our mitts on these precious goodies.

If by chance you can’t make it to the Jersey shore (or if you’re a snobbypants and don’t ‘do Jersey’ - whatever!) Jessie also mentioned this fabulous Peanut Butter & Jelly Bar from ciao for now in NYC’s East Village:

She notes, “served in thick, dense wedges, this bar is weighty–but oh so rewarding. It all starts with a thick cookie-like crust on top of which is sandwiched a thick layer of peanut butter and a sliver of jelly, which is then all topped with an oaty-nutty-crumbly topping.” Say no more - where’s my metro card?!! Granted there’s no chocolate in the bar, but PB&J is a close cousin of PB&C, so I can make an exception!

Lesson learned: Keep an eye on Cakespy for yummy cpb treats and of course for those adorable cupcake paintings of hers! Thanks to Jessie for spreading the word about these treats as well as the beautiful photos!

Who would have thought to add mayonnaise to a cake batter recipe?

My friend Carla once told me that she suspected the condiment would add great moisture to a cake. Feeling curious, I decided to test her theory. I also challenged myself to decorate a fancy two layer cake, as it had been a while since I’d made any pretty desserts.

I found this recipe for Aunt Joyce’s Chocolate Cake and decided to give it a whirl. In the end it produced a moist and luscious cake that wasn’t at all greasy as you might expect. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of looking at the calorie count on the side of the mayonnaise jar. This recipe uses a whole cup of it. Eep! Shield your eyes should you decide to make this. Ignorance is bliss, my friends. The cake is seriously delicious and that’s all you need to know.

The only downside is that it’s so soft and moist that it sticks to everything including knives, spatulas and your fingers. This being the case, it was quite tricky to decorate without becoming a total mess. Though the finished product didn’t quite resemble something you’d see on Cake Boss, it came out pretty by my standards and looked quite impressive considering how unruly the cake was.

A few decorating tips: Grease your knives or spatulas before trying to remove the cake from the pan or cut it into layers. You should also apply a crumb coating when you ice it so that the cake crumbs don’t get mixed into your pretty layer of icing.

On the other hand, if you don’t feel like being so meticulous, just douse hunks of it with chocolate peanut butter sauce and whipped cream and call it a day. The easy way out would still produce a mouthwatering dessert.

Get the recipe for Aunt Joyce’s Chocolate cake at Allrecipes. If you want to replicate my version, cover it with peanut butter cream cheese frosting (recipe after the break). I decorated my cake with whole and crushed chocolate wafers, peanut butter chips and another frosting I made using Izzybelle Chocolate Peanut Butter Sauce. I’d give you the recipe for that too, but I just added milk and powdered sugar to it until I had the consistency I was looking for. You could probably do this with any store-bought sauce - just add the sugar and milk and mix until you think you can pipe it.

Take a (short) break from cupcakes and challenge yourself to build a pretty chocolate peanut butter cake!

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Uh oh, watch out - we’re on a cupcake kick again!

Taste Tester wanted to visit Sweet Revenge ages ago. It took us a while, but we recently gained the motivation to go from this list of New York’s Best Cupcakes by Nancy Olson of Gramery Tavern. Nancy raved about Sweet Revenge’s “The Sweet Revenge” peanut butter cupcake and ranked the cupcakery at an honorable 8th place out of 15 of NYC’s best cupcake stops. Here’s her full run-down of their cupcake collection:

And here’s our critique of “The Sweet Revenge” cupcake:

This cupcake as a whole is better than the sum of it’s parts. The cake didn’t have an intense peanut butter flavor and had a dry consistency, making it easily the weakest component of the cupcake. The frosting on the other hand, had a pleasantly smooth consistency but also lacked intense peanut butter flavor (at least, by our high pb-loving standards). Luckily, when paired together, the two moderately peanutty elements made for a strong overall peanut butter flavor.

When I first bit into it, I thought it was a good cupcake but nothing amazing. Then I got to the creamy dark chocolate ganache center, and WOW. A bite with all three elements was perfect. I understood the hype. Taste Tester did too, noting it as one of his favorite store-bought cupcakes (second to Molly’s in Chicago).

As far as presentation goes, I loved the brown paper wrapping. The wooden fork that came with it was cute, but not particularly pleasant to eat with as the dry wood didn’t do the dry cake any favors.

Here’s a shot of the cross-section. I think you can see by looking at it that the cake was dry but the frosting and ganache were mmm MMM good!

Oh and I can’t forget about the cookies! Before running out to gobble our cupcake, we noticed a cake stand on the counter that was full of Chocolate Chip and Peanut Butter Cookies. I for one, cannot resist a soft cookie. Could you?

These cookies are soft, buttery and doughy. They were so moist that they actually made kind of a squishy sound as I broke them in half. It’s hard to describe the sound without it coming off as gross, but I promise it was a good thing.

Taste Tester and I both agreed that these cookies were not quite as good as the ones from Feed Your Soul, but if you’re a fan of soft cookies, you should absolutely try them. The chocolate chip was slightly better than the peanut butter, but they were both very good.

Oh and FYI, Sweet Revenge is also a bar where they host wine, beer and cupcake pairings. So the next time you’re out late and your friends want to go to a bar when you’re dying for something sweet, you can both be happy!

Taste Tester and I have only tasted 7 of the 15 cupcakes on Gramercy Tavern’s list. Clearly, we have to get working! I’ll keep you posted when (not if) we try any others!

On a partially related note (this is a cupcake post, after all) I attended the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this weekend where I had the pleasure of meeting Jessie Oleson of Cakespy, a blog I’ve been a big fan of for a long while. I went home happy with one of her adorable cupcake t-shirts. The shirt’s graphic is a drawing of hipster cupcakes waiting at the Bedford Ave Subway Stop in Williamsburg. It was an all-too appropriate tee for this event. Check out more of Jessie’s super cute cupcake products at her etsy shop!

It should also be mentioned that on the way home from the fair, we stopped at the ever-awesome sweets shop Baked, where I had a fantastically good chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. I truly cannot get enough cupcakes. But then again, who could?

Despite the fact that it’s weather kinda sucks, and its inhabitants (for the most part) need to be educated on what a good pizza slice is, Chicago is a pretty excellent place. Taste Tester and I used to live there and like to return fairly regularly to visit friends, family and of course chow down on some of our favorite good eats.

Here’s a list of some of the super awesome places we visited, most of which are serving up some awesome chocolate peanut butter treats!

Molly’s Cupcakes
If you only get to taste one store-bought cupcake in your life, it should be the Ron Bennington. We went to Molly’s for the first time last summer which was the first time I tasted it, and it was just as fantastic the second time around - maybe even better. The cupcake was moist and rich, with a nice hunk of peanut butter in the center, delicious chocolate ganache on top and hits it home with the crunchy butterscotch topping. If you go to Chicago and fail to have one of these cupcakes - I’m not one to threat, but - I may have to beat you silly with an oven mitt.

This time around I also tried their Peanut Butter Nutella Cupcake, which is a peanut butter cake filled with a generous hunk of Nutella and topped with buttercream Nutella frosting. The Ron Bennington reigns supreme as my favorite, but this cupcake was also pretty damn good. The peanut butter and chocolate hazelnut spread made a great flavor combination.

Milk & Honey
I used to live around the corner from Milk & Honey and oh, how I miss it. The food and pastries are fantastic and don’t even get me started on their granola. Mmmm… the granola. Whenever I travel to Chi-town I make a point to visit and always return home with a bag or two. After trying it, your cereal will seriously never be the same again. For those of you who don’t happen to have a Chicago visit planned, you can purchase it online. They recently came out with a new Vegan Cashew Papaya mix that is awesome!

Southport Grocery
Southport Grocery is an awesome cafe that serves awesome food, and has an awesome little market area that sells awesome baked goods. Is that enough awesome for you? You really can’t go wrong here. Order the bread pudding pancakes or “grown up pop tart” and grab some Askinosie Chocolate, Terry’s Toffee, a vanilla cupcake and a dutch brownie on the way out. I know that sounds like a lot of stuff, but if you pass on any of those, you are missing out! I also picked up this tasty looking Peanut Butter Bum Bar which I will be writing a review of shortly. *Update: read a review of this bar here!*

Intelligentsia
Their Broadway location is a great place to sit, relax and welcome the morning with a cup of their truly delicious coffee. They also sell Vosges chocolate bars including the Peanut Butter BonBon.

Candyality
Unfortunately they were closed when we walked by too early the morning, but it looked pretty sweet inside. The old fashioned candy and childish decor will no doubt make you feel like a kid again. If you’re experiencing a cpb craving, I definitely noticed at least a few qualifying treats as we made like peeping Tom in the window.

Just Indulge
We made it just before closing and had a nice chat with the friendly owner as we ogled the goodies in the display case. One of my favorite chocolate shops to visit back when I lived in town was The Chicago Chocolate Company. I was so sad when they closed their retail location and I could no longer pilfer delicious free samples or daydream about sticking my face in the glorious fondue fountains. Thankfully you can now visit Just Indulge to buy their treats including chocolate peanut butter squares or logs to enjoy alongside your ice cream, custard or cupcake.

Lovely
I have visited most of the above mentioned places many times, but this was my first trip to Lovely and I can definitely say there will be future visits. The space is large, relaxing and rustic with a roomy patio. Eateries are so gigantic in places that are not New York… it’s just not fair!

The service is friendly, they have Intelligentsia coffee (mmmm) and their baked goods both look and taste fantastic. They have a fun blog with pretty polaroids of their delicious sweets if you’d like a sneak peak. Another reason to love Lovely is that they had a nice array of chocolate peanut butter treats including this gorgeous Peanut Butter Fluff Pie, chocolate chip peanut butter cookies and peanut butter brownies.

Our group can confirm that the corn muffins, blueberry muffins and croissants are all delicious (and we are snobs about both corn muffins and croissants). They bake everything on site with exception of the bagels which are from NYC Bagels, arguably the best bagelry in Chicago.

Sweet Cakes
Our visit to Sweet Cakes garnered mixed reviews. Joann thought her strawberry cake was a bit too heavy and Taste Tester didn’t like the vanilla cupcake. On the bright side, the asiago scone was yummy, the coffee was good and I really enjoyed my smores cupcake. It actually tasted just like a smore! The cake’s texture and flavor was spot on for a graham cracker and the frosting was nice and fluffy just like a marshmallow. Sadly they didn’t serve any chocolate peanut butter concoctions. *sniff*

I get kind of a funny feeling now whenever I go to a bakery and eat something other than a chocolate peanut butter treat (even when it’s not an option). It feels like I’m cheating on the blog a little, like it’s become my duty to seek and consume every cpb treat in my path. You should know that I take my job seriously (it’s not really a job, but you know what I mean)! :P

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this little guide of deliciousness in Chicago. Though some of the aforementioned places do not carry cpb snacks, most of them do. So book your flight and happy eating!

Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn was nice enough to do a great little write-up on The CPB Gallery today. If you haven’t checked their site out before, it’s a wonderful website who’s motto is, “inspiring cooks, nourising homes,” and do they ever!

There’s definitely someone on board at their HQ that has a chocolate peanut butter sweet tooth, since this isn’t the first time they’ve shown their love of chocolate and peanut butter. In the past they have linked to a great bunch of chocolate peanut butter recipes including:

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Monster Cookies
Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Bacon Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes

Check out all their site has to offer and get cookin’! Thanks to Faith at The Kitchn for the super nice write-up!

What goes best with peanut butter? For me, three things come to mind immediately. Chocolate of course is number one, followed closely by jelly and finally there’s Marshmallow Fluff. You may have grown up with fluff but how much do you really know about it?

If you will are looking to expand your knowledge of fluff, you can still sign up for Marshmallow Fluff: A Gastronomica Forum at the Astor Center on Tuesday May 26th from 6:30 - 8:30 PM. (Sorry for the short notice, but I just found out about it!)

At the forum you will learn lots of interesting tidbits including the answers to burning fluff-related questions such as:

• Where did Marshmallow Fluff come from?
• What exactly is it?
• Why do we romanticize its sweet, sticky nature?
• How is it that it makes the World’s Best Candy?

A fluff cocktail will be served, as well as fluffernutter sandwiches and other fluff-inspired snacks. Maybe some of the treats served will include chocolate and peanut butter?

Buy your tickets asap from The Astor Center. And FYI, if you’re interested in other food classes in NYC, Serious eats posts excellent class listings weekly that you should definitely check out!

Hopefully the forum will be informative and not filled with a lot of useless fluff! Cue trombone.

Hi and sorry for the long delay! Taste Tester and I have been busy travelling to the Chicago area for a week+ where we will be spending time with family. We will also of course be hunting down chocolate peanut butter treats (like the awesome Ron Bennington Cupcake from Molly’s - yuuUUUuum!)

Before we left, I whipped up a batch of these excellent Chocolate Peanut Butter Treats Cookies whose taste is reminiscent of Puppy Chow (click the link if you don’t know what I’m talking about - they don’t taste like Purina, I promise). These are peanut butter cookies coated in a chocolate peanut butter mixture and then coated in powdered sugar. I have yet to meet someone that dislikes Puppy Chow, so it stands to reason that everyone will love these cookies!

Unfortunately, despite the fact that they’re partially made from a store-bought mix, they still take a good amount of time to make. The coating, at least for me, didn’t go on as quickly and easily as it does when making Puppy Chow. The process is easy, it just takes a little time and patience. It’s possible that my chocolate mixture should have been melted just a tad longer, so I won’t fault the recipe until I try it again. Just be aware when microwaving the chocolate mixture that you want it smooth for easy-coating, but not over-heated it because then the chocolate can get cakey and you’ll just have to chuck the whole thing.

Fun fact: I came up with the A-Rod Cupcake as a result of having extra peanut butter cookies from this recipe sitting around my kitchen. So if you made or tasted the A-Rod, you can thank this recipe!

Get the prize-winning recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Treats from Betty Crocker!