Tag: marshmallows

Recipe: Double-Chocolate Walnut & Marshmallow Creme Fudge

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I brought along some fudge to Ru’s party on Saturday and I thought I’d post it here in case anyone would like the recipe. I had in mind that I could bake a dessert and something with nuts & chocolate sounded good. So, I decided on fudge and headed to AllRecipes for an appropriate recipe.

I searched for “fudge” and found my way to their fudge section. From there, I navigated to the Fudge with Nuts recipes and on to the recipes for Chocolate Fudge [with Nuts]. There were about a dozen recipes there and I concetrated on those recipes which already had many reviews (recipes that are highly rated tend to garner more reviews, which leads to more reviews and so on).

I settled on Aunt Teen’s Creamy Chocolate Fudge. It had 343 reviews and still had an average 5-star rating. What I also liked about it — in addition to its inclusion of two types of chocolate along with marshmallow creme — was that it required no fancy candy thermometers (as some fudge recipes do). Here’s the recipe:

Aunt Teen’s Creamy Chocolate Fudge

Ingredients:

  • 1 (7 ounce) jar marshmallow creme
  • 1 ½ cups white sugar [see notes below on alterations]
  • ⅔ cup evaporated milk [a 5 oz can]
  • ¼ cup butter
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips [one full 12 oz bag]
  • 1 cup milk chocolate chips [half a 12 oz bag]
  • ½ cup chopped nuts [walnuts work very well here, though pecans would probably also be good]
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and spread the nuts in an even layer. Toast them for 4 minutes, rotate pan, and continue to toast until fragrant and color deepens slightly, about 4 minutes longer. Then set them aside to slightly cool until they’re needed.

  2. Line an 8×8 inch pan with aluminum foil. Set aside.

  3. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine half the jar of marshmallow creme, sugar, evaporated milk, butter and salt. Bring to a full boil, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and pour in semisweet chocolate chips and milk chocolate chips. Stir until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in nuts and vanilla; lightly fold in remaining marshmallow creme. Pour into prepared pan. Chill in refrigerator for 2 hours or until firm.

Recipe notes and alterations:

Though the recipe calls for 1 ½ cups of sugar, some of the reviews suggested trying just 1 cup of sugar instead. Since I didn’t want an overly-sweet fudge, I went with that suggestion (which worked out well). On a later batch, I tried using just ⅔ cup of sugar and that seemed to further improved the chocolatiness-to-sweetness ratio.

At one point, I also thought about using Splenda in lieu of sugar altogether. But I decided not to take a chance on that as fudge recipes tend to rely on the crystalline nature of sugar for the proper chemical reactions (unlike many other baked goods which only use sugar for its sweetening properties).

Peeps + Peanut Butter

Ashley Bischoff8 Comments

I was feeling a little peckish after breakfast this morning, so I was looking around the kitchen for a little snack. There’s not much around these days, as I’ve stopped buying cookies and Newtons for the time being.

I still hand plenty of Peeps — resulting from a 90%-off sale at Target after Easter — so I turned my attention to those. I was about to eat one raw, but then I recalled that I may as well nuke ’em. From there, my mind went into overdrive — “What if I could add a topping to nuked Peep to magnify its goodness?”. And, from there, I turned to peanut butter.

I just opened up the jar — reduced-fat, no less — and dunked the helpless Peep in there. I made sure that his little body was covered in peanuttyness. From there, I just placed him on a saucer and nuked him for 12 seconds on high.

Man, you thought nuked Peeps were good? This was spectacular. It was like taking the Peepiness to a whole new level. It was just fabulously delicous. Mmm, I’m going to have to exercise restraint to stop myself from eating too many of these ;).

Nuked Peeps

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

Among the comments on that Fried Twinkie story, one guy talks about campfire-roasted Peeps:

On a slightly-related note, my girlfriend and I recently satisfied a bout of the munchies with campfire-roasted Peeps. The sugar coating charred into a crispy, cr�me-brulee-esque glaze, while the marshmallow insides got deliciously gooey. Mmmmm, so yummy.

Figuring that I could emulate his results with household appliances, I nuked a Peep for 12 seconds in the microwave. Ooh, it was so delicious! It was hot and gooey (yet fluffy) on the inside, and the sugar-coating had liquified just slightly. Man, nuked Peeps are, in my estimation, about twice as tasty as “normal” Peeps! And, yes, I can understand your hesitation since normal Peeps are so tasty to begin with — but just trust me on this one :).