Monday, January 10, 2011

chocolate peanut butter bites


We've been really keen on dessert lately. I think it's because we didn't get to indulge in a humongous load of Christmas sweets this year. Maybe our bodies feel cheated out of fruitcake and shortbread which would also explain the ice cream and ice cream sandwiches we just bought. During a snowstorm.


So in an effort to counteract the crazy sugar cravings we seem to be enduring, I made something relatively healthy yet still sweet. Oats, coconut, crispy rice cereal, peanut butter, and honey. That's got to be a little better than ice cream, right?



Instead of plain ol' peanut butter, I used this amazing blended peanut butter called Dark Chocolate Dreams from Peanut Butter & Company. I've heard of flavoured peanut butter before, but I haven't found it here until now. You can find two flavours (the dark chocolate and the cinnamon raisin swirl) at Save-On Foods. I think the cinnamon raisin peanut butter would be delicious in this recipe, too!

The dark chocolate peanut butter by itself is tasty, though I think it's more suited for baking. It just didn't excite me when I tried it on toast. I wish it were a little sweeter, but then that's probably just that weird sugar fixation kicking in again.


chocolate peanut butter bites
adapted from here
makes around 20-25 pieces

1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter (or just regular peanut butter)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

In a small pot add the honey, peanut butter, and butter and heat until the butters are just melting together. Stir until everything is completely melted and mixed together. In a large to medium mixing bowl, mix together the cereal, oats, and coconut. Add the melted butters to the bowl and mix to thoroughly coat all the dry ingredients. Allow the mixture to cool until it's almost room temperature.

With a spoon or a small cookie scoop, scoop out a small amount of the mixture and with wet hands (if you don't wet your hands, all the bits will pull apart and stick to you), forcefully squeeze the mixture together until it forms a ball. Squeezing them really hard helps a lot. They don't stay together very easily at this point. I found I could get away with rolling out one or two before I had to wet my hands again, so as soon as you notice a little bit of the ingredients starting to stick on your hands, wet them again. Keep in the fridge until completely hardened then enjoy!

6 comments:

Lindsey @ Hot Polka Dot said...

Yum! These look delicious! Love the photos too!

Thewholesomehome said...

ooo yum! I can't wait to try these!

Little Mochi said...

Oh, My! I will have to try these unfortunately minus the coconut due to a food allergy in the house.

Robyn said...

There is a PB company from Saratoga, NY that I have the privilege of buying from directly at local farmer's markets, and their products are so delicious! They have tons of flavors, and these have certainly given me recipe inspirations. Their site is www.yopeanut.com (and I swear I am in no way affiliated with the company...just a satisfied customer!)

GALaxy said...

Thanks Lindsey!
Little Mochi: I think I would substitute a little more cereal or oats. It might be interesting to try a completely different cereal instead for some contrast!
Robyn: You're lucky you can buy it so easily! We used to be able to get a pb and jam swirl that was my absolute favourite growing up, but then all of a sudden, all the flavoured interesting pbs just disappeared. It's nice to see some of them coming back!

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh, can you say yum? Peanut butter is my new thing. Love it!! And when you add chocolate? Win!
Jess : )