Christmas treats

Every year we try to make some delicious treats for the neighbors. This year's choice was a small amount of homemade Irish creme, and a lot of chocolate peanut butter balls.

[UPDATE: See note at bottom of this post]

Since the Irish creme has to ripen for a week, I made it first. (Full instructions can be found here.)

One of the ingredients in Irish creme is chocolate syrup. But wait, we're out! I was prepared to make a grumpy run to the grocery store when Don suggested I consult my faithful "Cheaper and Better" to see if I could make it myself. Sure enough.

A few chocolate chips, a little bit of butter, some boiling water, and voilà: chocolate syrup. Gotta love that book.

I only needed four teaspoons, though, so I put the rest in the fridge.

Then I finished making the Irish creme. Normally I use vodka ('cuz it's cheap and flavorless) even though the liqueur is traditionally made with whiskey...

But wait! We had whiskey! A friend of Don's visited a couple years ago and brought along a bottle of good stuff.

It never even got cracked open and has been sitting gathering dust (literally) in our pantry ever since.

I decided to split the batch (since we only had a limited amount of Gentleman Jack). I made half the Irish creme with vodka...

...and half with whiskey.

We'll do a taste comparison and see which we like better.

With the Irish creme made and put into a dark cabinet to ripen...

...I turned my attention to making chocolate peanut butter balls, for which I went into full-scale production mode. Not all of our neighbors drink alcohol (we have a lot of Mormon friends), but sweets are always appreciated.

I picked up some pretty tins at a thrift store...

...and packed them with goodies. The tins are of various sizes, which is good. The smallest will go to a single friend. The largest will go to a family with seven children.

With all the treats done, we can now look forward to Older Daughter flying in from New Jersey on Christmas Eve.

(Bonus photo: sunset on the winter solstice.)

[UPDATE: Some readers have noted used copies of Cheaper and Better were going for outrageous prices on Amazon. Sure enough, they are. Yowza. I found another source here which might be better.]

Chocolate-peanut butter balls

I wanted to make something a little different for dessert for our weekly neighborhood potluck. After some thought, I decided to make chocolate-peanut butter balls.

These are similar to peanut butter cups, but I didn't bother with trying to shape them into the standard Reese's shape. Balls were easier.

I found a recipe here. These are the ingredients:

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
4 cups milk chocolate chips (two 11.5-oz bags)
1/4 cup vegetable shortening

Since I was making these for a group, I doubled the recipe.

I started by melting the butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar on the stove.

It melts very readily.

While it heated, I measured out the powdered sugar I needed.

I added the powdered sugar a bit at a time, rather than all at once.

By adding the powdered sugar a bit at a time and stirring after each addition, the peanut butter mixture turns grainy and thick and is no longer "liquidy."

At this stage, have cookie sheets lined with waxed paper ready.

Then I made a mistake: I chilled the peanut butter mix. Wrong thing to do. Chilling makes it too brittle to roll into balls, so I had to re-heat the mix in the microwave to make it malleable again. Lesson learned: roll the mix into balls while it's still warm. Then chill.

Next step is to make the chocolate coating. Though I doubled the recipe, I only "singled" the chocolate part, figuring I could make more if needed. As it turned out, it wasn't needed.

Melt the chocolate chips/shortening in the microwave in 30-second increments. Everyone's microwave is different, and you don't want to go overboard on melting the chocolate, so take it slow.

Once the chocolate/shortening is melted and mixed, it's time to dip the peanut butter balls. A slotted spoon didn't work for me (the slots were too small and the chocolate didn't drain from the spoon), so after a bit of juggling, I ended up using a fork to sort of roll the balls around the chocolate, then fished them out with tongs.

I laid the wet balls on waxed paper.

When everything was dipped, I put the cookie sheets in the chest freezer for a few hours, just to harden things up.

The results are positively addicting.

I recommend keeping them in the refrigerator, but it's almost guaranteed they won't last long.