This is a snack idea that was inspired by a vegan snack submission from CPBG reader, Erin Foster. She spreads peanut butter on a Wasa Rye Cracker and tops it with chocolate chips. Fast and tasty.

However, I didn’t stick to her version exactly. I used Wasa Oats Crackers since rye is a flavor I don’t particularly care for and used cocoa nibs… for no good reason, really. But for me, “because they’re delicious” is enough of a reason. I also suspected the nuttiness of the nibs would go well with this fruit. And they did!

Not just any fruit either! A Pluot! Er… Plumicot! Or is it an Aprium? Conclusion: this fruit hybrid has too many names.

Whatever this was called, I think it’s my new favorite fruit. It looks a little closer to an apricot, but tasted just a bit more like a plum. My tastebuds were a bit confused but extremely delighted at the same time. I will have to track these down again. I love when the weather gets warmer and fruits are in season again, don’t you? These were as sweet as candy and disappeared from my fridge in record time.

As for the other ingredients, I am still obsessed with PB & Co’s The Bees Knees Honey Peanut Butter. And though I had no idea what to expect from the Wasa crackers, they were surprisingly tasty. They are light, crunchy with a great nutty oat flavor, and provided the perfect bed for peanut butter. My only qualm with them was that they were a bit fragile, and with every bite I hoped that the disturbance wouldn’t make the rest of the cracker that remained in my hand crumble, decorating my shirt with a fruity-peanut-butter-cocoa-nib mess. Easy solution though: eat over a plate. I know, you wish you were this smart.

Back to the cocoa nibs. I suppose now’s a good time to admit that I’ve polished off a lethal amount of Askinosie Nibby Bars in the last few weeks. Thinking about it makes me feel gluttonous. And now I have a bag of their lovely Roasted Cocao Nibs. Let the gluttony continue! Bwahaha! For those of you who may not have ever had the pleasure of tasting cocoa nibs, here is a definition for you from Gourmet Sleuth:

Cacao Nibs are perfectly roasted cocoa beans separated from their husks and broken into small bits. They are the essence of chocolate. Nibs add crunchiness and subtle chocolate flavor to baked goods and savory dishes. They make a great substitute for roasted nuts or chocolate chips, without added sweetness.

They basically taste like chocolate nuts. The top of Askinosie’s Cocoa Nib box suggests that, “they taste great with yogurt, peanut butter, toast, smoothies, brownies, cookies and ice cream.” I’ve even been known to put these in my salad. Yes, salad. I was not kidding when I professed my love of them. Hmm… maybe I could try a salad with the cocoa nibs, that apricotplumthingy, some goat cheese, dried cranberries… hm!

Erin said that this was her favorite vegan snack before being diagnosed with a nut allergy. My taste tester also developed a nut allergy in recent years so I have seen second hand how unfortunate it is to deal with. He can eat every nut but peanuts (they are a legume). While I don’t suffer from this I often think about what experiencing it would do to my diet. Obviously, given the title of this blog I might be just a little upset. Since my focus is peanut butter, I can’t post recipes that are void of nuts but I do try to keep an eye out for vegan and gluten-free recipes here and there. If anyone out there has a special diet chocolate peanut butter recipe they’d like to share, please do.

By the way, a small note for you vegans: I just read here that all Wasa Crackers are vegan except the oat flavor. So keep that in mind if you decide to purchase them!

In the meantime, enjoy this tasty refreshing treat!

Both of our versions after the break.

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Well, I’m sorry that I didn’t discover this until the day of, but just incase you’re a bad person a bit late on getting your mom a gift for Mother’s Day, put in an order for these asap. Peanut Butter & Co is offering two Mother’s Day Gift Boxes for you to choose from. In my opinion, as the stereotype says, all women love chocolate. So I suggest the brownies, but really they both look super tasty.

I have loved everything I’ve tried from Peanut Butter & Co, so given their great track record, I’m bettin this gift idea is a winner!

I may be too late to order a gift and have it shipped on time, but it’s not too late to send my regards. Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms out there, and especially to mine. :)

You are getting a double dose of delicious today!

Click here to obtain said deliciousness. You’re welcome!

Not only does this link provide you with a fantastic recipe for a beautiful No Bake Peanut Butter Banana Tofu Pie, but it also brings you to a brand spankin new food blog called The Baking Bird. This blog is especially great for all you vegans out there, tempting you with it’s lovely photographs of glorious non-dairy creations. I certainly wouldn’t miss dairy if I ate like Miss Kylie (the creator of this blog) does. Check out those photos!

Starting The Chocolate Peanut Butter Gallery has not only provided me with an ever growing library of chocolate peanut butter recipes, but has also made me very aware of the food blogging world, and what a glorious one it is! There are so many nice, talented people out there writing about their tasty creations and doling out valuable kitchen wisdom.

I’m happy to report that The Baking Bird is another great one to add to the list. The author says her blog will include, “food, food photography, photography, baking (especially vegan), cooking, nature, modern design, interior design, pumpkins and peanut butter (my two greatest obsessions–it’s almost a little too obvious as you’ll surely find out), and anything else inspiring and lovely.” She had me convinced at “food” but seeing “peanut butter” on that list obviously piqued my interested. :P

For more fantastic food blogs to check out, take a look at my blogroll on the right of this page. And be sure to forward The Baking Bird out to your friends and friends of friends. It’s new, it’s great and people need to know it’s there!

Don’t forget to try her delicious AND healthful (!) No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Tofu Pie. Also, I don’t let myself write whole posts on recipes unless they have both chocolate and peanut butter, but PLEASE take a look at these Coffee Mocha Vegan Cupcakes. Holy. Cow. Only, not cow because there’s no milk. So… Holy. Soy.

And a quick thank you to all of you food bloggers out there that I’ve met through The CPBG. Thank you for entertaining me, sharing with me and teaching me. :) If you are reading this and you have a food blog, feel free to submit it and a sentence or two describing it in the comments section of this post. People should see your hard work!

I’m feeling indulgent today. :)

Mostly I love shakes because they’re so easy. It doesn’t really matter what you have in your kitchen - ice cream, frozen yogurt, regular yogurt, chocolate milk, regular milk, ice… as long as you’re creative you can make something yummy.

If you’re tired of the same old icy drink, treat yourself to this. Starbucks will still be there tomorrow.

Get the recipe at Hershey’s Kitchens.

This will be the second time I profess my love of rice cakes. Is it weird to love a food that resembles styrofoam? Maybe, but I can’t help it.

After since finding out about these on the web and writing a previous post about them, I have been checking in every grocery store I’ve come across searching for them. But it seems they are no where to be found. Did they decide that New Jersey was not worthy of them? I’m going to take this opportunity to reach out to Quaker and plead that they please start distributing this product to the NY/NJ area. Pretty please?

My long time friend and fellow sweets addict, Carla of Carla’s Cupcakery in Florida was kind enough to ship me a couple bags of them. I’ve been shipped chocolate, cookies, granola bars, even cupcakes but never rice cakes, so kudos to her for being the first to do that for me.

Part of the reason I love rice cakes is that I am a habitual snacker. So sometimes even when I’m not that hungry I end up snacking just because I want to. This, obviously can be a bad habit and make you gain weight. However, rice cakes are so low in calories that I feel like I can snack on them all day long and not worry that I’m going to tip the scales. And what’s great about this flavor is that it’s got that nice peanut butter coating and it’s topped with lots of mini chocolate chips, so you don’t even feel the need to top it with any kind of spread.

Look at all those nooks and crannies! Wait, wrong catch phrase. Moving on…

My only complaint about rice cakes is that they crunch so loud that I am a little embarrassed to eat them at work and disturb the pseudo silence that’s typically present in the office. The crunch is far less disturbing when eating the smaller sized rice cakes (aka Quakes), but they have yet to release the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip flavor in that size. The larger ones, including these stay at home where they can be slathered in peanut butter or whatever else is in my pantry, but like I said, in this case toppings are not necessary. Though Carla has told me multiple times that they taste great with peanut butter, marshmallow fluff and bananas, so I may have to try that combo and report back!

Go on a wild goose chase to every super market in your general area in order to track these down, or beg your friend in Florida to ship some to you. They’re worth the trouble.

Read more about them at Quaker’s site, On Track Everyday.

Before I get on with this post, I want to say for the record that I have loved every Martha Stewart recipe I have tried up to this point. I have a subscription to Everyday Food, which I just recently raved about and I also own her Baking Handbook and Cookie Book. A lot of people have asked me how the Cookie Book is, and though I have been satisfied with it otherwise, I am going to save you some trouble and warn you not to make one recipe in it…

I made pinwheels from Martha’s new book recently and I am sad to admit that they were completely disappointing. Homemade sugar cookies are a rarity in my kitchen as they are generally not indulgent enough for my sweet tooth. But for some strange reason, I had an intense craving for them, and after receiving Martha’s new book as a gift and browsing through it for a couple days, I chose her recipe for pinwheels as a worthy treat.

I took extreme care with every step, and these were not a quick cookie to make. You take two different kinds of doughs, roll them out, let them refrigerate, brush them with egg, layer em, roll em up, refrigerate again, slice, lay out on baking sheets and bake.

Phew! That’s a lot of work! But I was determined and excited to taste that sugary goodness. Sadly disappointment set in when I tasted the cookies and they had an overwhelming egg flavor instead. Did I use too much egg when I was “glueing” the chocolate and vanilla layers of dough together? I only used as much as it seemed was necessary. Were they supposed to taste like that? They certainly didn’t taste as expected. I was extremely careful with each step and after reviewing and re-reviewing the recipe, could not pinpoint a spot where I might have messed up. But it didn’t matter who the fault belonged to, the end result was the same: I did not enjoy these cookies.

To add insult to injury, when my taste tester took a bite (he had been forewarned that they were less than desirable) his assessment was, “they’re not bad, but you should have made pinwheels with chocolate and peanut butter.”

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If you are a frequent CPBG reader, you may have heard me mention my taste tester at some point. Whenever I’m out shopping, I browse around for treats to pick up for me (of course!), but I also keep an eye out for things to buy for him. He deserves it as he lends his taste buds to help me out quite often.

On my recent trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar, I noticed a whole bunch of giant crispy treats sold at the cafe in the store’s top floor. While I can’t say they are his favorite dessert, they probably make the top ten - maybe even the top five. I couldn’t help but grab a couple.

I left the store with a Chocolate Dipped Crispy and a Chocolate Cookie and Marshmallow Crispy, not realizing until I got home and searched their site that they also make a Peanut Butter Crispy!

It’s hard to describe what makes their product so much better than your average packaged rice krispie treat. Do they whip the marshmallow like crazy to give it that very airy texture? Do they use homemade marshmallows? The treats are so moist it almost tastes like they mix marshmallow fluff in somehow. But, the treats aren’t sticky enough for that, so…? Hmph! This is hard.

Whatever their technique, kudos to them because they make a great product. On the about section of their website, Vicki Mate states right off the bat that she is obsessed with marshmallow. This is exactly what you want to hear from a person who runs a company that produces a marshmallow-y treat.

It’s also clear that she loves marshmallow simply judging by the ratio of marshmallow to cereal. Your average crispy bar has a lot of marshmallow, but it’s used more as a glue for the crispies. Hers overflows with marshmallow, making it softer and chewier as opposed to the slightly crunchy crispie treat.

And the treats are so large, we cut one horizontally into four rectangles which made for easy sharing. Though, she is right when she says that you may not want to share, so maybe pick up a few extras when you are placing your order.

After tasting their Chocolate Dipped Crispy Bar and realizing how great a crispy treat can be, I’ll have to get my hands on their Peanut Butter Bar! Buy yourself one at their site.

Wow, have I got a lot of fun stuff to show you today!

I have lived in the NYC area for most of my life, but decided to pretend to be a tourist there for you this week. But not just any tourist… a candy shop tourist!

I was a bit early for work the other day and since it was a nice day out, opted to walk there instead of taking the train. The route took me across town through the northern end of Times Square and just so happen to spot the Hershey Times Square Store on my way. I also popped into the M&M’s World Store which was conveniently located right across the street. Finally, yesterday I got out of work early and took a longer route home that included a trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar. I had been curious about Dylan’s for a long time, so my expectations for that stop were kind of high. But before we get to that, I bring you to the Hershey Times Square Store…

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I had discovered these granolas a while back while surfing the web, but gave up looking for them them after many fruitless searches. Then suddenly of all random places, I went to one of those non-descript soup / salad / sandwich lunch places that are scattered all over Manhattan and low and behold, what do I find but Erin Baker’s Granolas! Without thinking twice, I grabbed both the Peanut Butter and Double Chocolate Chunk flavors, and off I went.

To get a well rounded opinion, I ate these granolas three different ways:

Dry, out of the bag
In milk, by themselves
In milk, over other cereal

For the record, the level of chocolate is generally what I focus on, while the level of peanut butter is what my taste tester focuses on. I tend to think sweets don’t have enough chocolate, while he thinks they need like double the amount of peanut butter they have. Unfortunately he couldn’t taste these because he is allergic to flax (the granolas have flax seed meal) so it was all up to me!

The Chocolate Chunk Granola

I think I might have actually gasped out loud when I saw the giant chunks of chocolate in the chocolate granola. Even still, I think I was skeptical of the potency of chocolate granola after being disappointed with Bear Naked’s, which was not a fair predisposition to have when tasting this brand. However, after eating a spoonful that had two glorious chunks of chocolate in it (this is not a rare occurance while eating this granola) I started to become a believer. I can also say that even the bites without big chocolate chunks are more chocolatey than I remember the Bare Naked variety being.

Also, while I’m comparing the two, I mentioned in my review of the Bare Naked granolas that I didn’t think their flavors held up at all in milk. In contrast, these granolas not only tasted potent dry, but definitely held onto their flavor in a bowl of milk. In fact I think the addition of milk may have made them even better.

The Peanut Butter Granola

The Chocolate Chunk was great, but I think of the two, I actually prefer the Peanut Butter. It was, at least to me, very peanut buttery and it was nice to see and taste those large chunks of peanuts scattered throughout. It tasted like I had sprinkled crunchy peanut butter cookies over my cereal. And the peanuts added just a little salty flavor to the mix, which was really pleasant. When I put even amounts of the chocolate and peanut butter granolas in a bowl, the peanut butter flavor seemed to be more dominant.

In Conclusion

If you’re looking for a way to add some chocolate and peanut butter to your breakfast cereal, buy yourself some of Erin Baker’s Peanut Butter and Double Chocolate Chunk Granolas. It’s almost like you’re tricking your tastebuds into thinking you’re having dessert for breakfast when you’re actually eating something healthy.

My only complaint is that I wish they were shipped to more locations in my area. Like, directly to my house. :)

This bar has been sitting in my chocolate peanut butter stash for a couple of weeks now waiting it’s turn to be tasted / reviewed. Finding a recipe that calls for the bar on the web reminded me about it, and so I finally took a bite.

We are used to seeing celebrity faces grace the wrappers and boxes of many products in the grocery store. But this bar actually has the celebrity’s name in the title, which at least to my knowledge is unusual. I found a press release for the bar here (warning if your computer sound is high, the sound on the site is obnoxious!). I read a bit about it, but quite honestly racing is not my thing, so I’ll leave the reading to you, if you’re interested. I’m more curious about the bar itself, which comes in both peanut butter and caramel.

Dale’s bar is by R.M.Palmer, who’s chocolate I haven’t been much a fan of in the past. I always feel kinda bad giving mediocre reviews for products, but this just didn’t really do it for me. After I opened it, it was clear that it was going to be one of those, “this is sitting on my desk, so I’m going to keep eating it,” snacks. I’ve been eating a lot of higher quality dark chocolate lately and it continually amazes me that the general American public prefers lower quality milk chocolate like this bar over the other, better stuff that’s out there. If you are a classic milk chocolate kind of consumer, this might be a good bar for you. Unfortunately, it’s not for me.

I will say that I enjoyed the shape of it. It’s segments are thin and rectangular as opposed to the cup shaped peanut butter filled chocolates we’re used to eating. It melts in your mouth nicely and the shape was a nice change of pace from the norm.

Also. I’m sure I’d enjoy it much more if it were hidden inside a cheesecake cupcake! Enjoy this recipe for Dale Jr’s Big Mo’ Champion Cheesecake Cupcakes from the Chocolate Atlas.