Recipe to Reality: Trick or Treat Salted Caramel Peanut Bars

This "treat" was absolutely a "trick" for me.

I have never tried to make a bar dessert before, nor have I worked with caramel so I found this one very challenging to get together!

Good thing I had the day off when I decided to make this because if I had tried this on a work day I may have lost my mind!

I found this recipe on Just a Pinch Recipes, but had such difficulty with it I would never attempt it again!

For me, this dessert was extremely difficult to manipulate and wasn't scrumptious enough to go through all the trouble again...

If you still want to make this dessert...

Serves: 12
Time: 1 hour 15 mins.
Here's What You'll Need!

• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 14 oz. package of wrapped caramels
• 2 tbs. water
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 cup marshmallow fluff
• 2 cups salted peanuts
• 1/4 cup candy corn

Put it All Together!

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees for baking your crust. Line a 8-inch baking pan with greased aluminum foil. (If you use non-stick foil, you do not need to grease!)

2) Combine flour, brown sugar, butter, and peanut butter in a mixer on medium speed for 1-2 minutes until tiny crumbs begin to form. Press onto the bottom of pan and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Allow to cool completely.

3) Unwrap your caramels...all 40 of them... then melt them over a double boiler. I don't currently own a double boiler, so I boiled water in a pot and used a skillet on top. Worked just fine! Keep stirring it once in a while so it doesn't burn. WARNING: This becomes unbearably sticky!

4) Beat the confectioners sugar with the marshmallow fluff in your mixer. Good luck getting it out!!! Use extra powdered sugar to act as flour to remove the marshmallow mixture onto a flexible cutting board. Mold into a square about the size of your crust. I found this part to be extremely difficult. Everytime I touched the fluffy stuff my hands were completely covered in this stuff. I actually started to feel a little claustrophobic like I couldn't get away! I don't even have any pictures of this because my hands were SO sticky!!!

5) Spread half of the caramel onto the crust (if you can...) and then place the marshmallow "square" on top of the caramel and crust. Pour the rest of the caramel on top of the marshmallow (if you can...) top with peanuts and candy corn and use a piece of saran wrap or parchment paper to push down and condense the bars.

I hope if you decide to make this you have better luck than I, but I found them to be a lot of work for not enough taste.

Too tricky for me!

Stay Sweet,

Recipe to Reality: Nutter Butter Balls

Hey Sweethearts!

Long time no blog! Sorry that I have been neglecting my posts, I have had a few busy weekends! Nonetheless, today I am here to post about a super easy recipe I recreated this week-Bakerella's Nutter Butter Balls! I found these delicious treats through Pinterest (follow us here) and when a window of opportunity presented itself on Wednesday, I jumped at the chance to make them! The best part is that they are no bake! This is my first experience with a "no bake" recipe, and I was a little hesitant at first, especially working with an ingredient like cream cheese, which can be pretty iffy when left out at room temperature for too long. However, I was surprised at how easy the process was, and grateful for not having to wash so many dishes and utensils!

The overall process was super easy-

1) Start by using a food processor or the back of a spoon to finely crush all but 5 Nutter Butter cookies from the package.

2) Combine the 8 oz. of cream cheese with the cookie pieces. I found that it was easiest to use my hands, even though it got a little messy. Simply use a kneading motion to combine the crumbs and the cream cheese. It should take a little elbow grease, but I think that this is the best way. It's almost like creaming butter with sugar, except doing it without the help of a standing mixer.

3) Using your hands, form the mixture into little balls about 1 inch in width and place on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. I ran into a little trouble as I reached the bottom of my bowl because I hadn't incorporated all of my crumbs with the cream cheese. So, some of the balls ended up falling apart a little, but it didn't bother me so much.

4) Melt your chocolate in a small bowl. I really don't like semisweet chocolate, and was unable to find any milk chocolate baker's squares, so I used about 3/4 of a bag of milk chocolate chips.
5) Coat the balls in the melted chocolate. I used my hands and looking back realize that it was probably not the best idea. Try your luck placing the ball on a spoon and into the chocolate, rotating it to coat the bottom and top.
6) Place the newly coated balls back onto the wax paper, and leave them to set in the refrigerator.

Once your desserts have been left in the fridge for about 2 hours or so, they are ready to eat! Just make sure that you store them in the refrigerator to prevent running into any problems with spoiled cream cheese or melty chocolate.

I thought that these treats were great, easy for anyone to make (like many of my recipe to reality posts) and would satisfy any peanut butter-chocolate craving! Plus, it only took me 15 minutes tops to create them, so they would be perfect for anyone scrambling for something to bring to a last minute party. Since they are small, they are a great after school treat as well!

Stay Sweet,