Picture Perfect Cooking

Yesterday was ingredient spotlight day at Eat At Home Cooks.  This week the focus is on nuts, which is great because sometimes I feel like a really big nut!!  Wink, wink!! 

Anyway, enjoy all of the delicious looking recipes over there.

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This is the second post of my Christmas fudge recipes and it focuses on peanut butter fudge.  Yum!  I am usually a chocoholic, but sometimes I prefer peanut butter fudge to the chocolate.  This is a really simple recipe and has a wonderful buttery flavor.  I found this on www.foodnetwork.com and it is an Alton Brown recipe.  If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that he is my favorite Food Network chef to watch.  His show, Good Eats, breaks down the recipes and he teaches the viewer about the scientific properties of the ingredients and how they react with each other.  It is very interesting! 

I digress, though.  Back to the fudge!  The only change I would make to this is to use a little less powdered sugar.  The taste was awesome, but the texture was crumbly instead of creamy. 

1 cup butter

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 lb powdered sugar

Line a 8 or 9 inch baking pan with foil.  Spray with non-stick spray.  Put the butter and peanut butter into a large microwave safe bowl.  Microwave this combo for 2 minutes on high.  Stir to combine and microwave for another 2 minutes on high.  Add the vanilla and powdered sugar to the peanut butter mixture with a wooden spoon.

Pour into the prepared pan and smooth.  Place a piece of waxed paper on the surface of the fudge and refrigerate until cool.  Cut into 48 pieces and store in an airtight container for up to one week, if it lasts that long.

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It is Christmas season and that means celebrating Jesus Christ’s birthday around here with food and family.  I love all of the homemade candy that gets made around the holiday, especially fudge.  For some reason, I have never found a recipe that ended with a batch of smooth, creamy, rich fudge.  Mine has always either been gritty or does not set up and I have fudge soup. 

I was searching the internet a little while ago and found this recipe for easy chocolate fudge.  Yeah, right!  I’ll just see about that.  I even made it more of a challenge by making it on a rainy day.  Did you know that the higher the humidity, the more difficult it is for candy to harden?  Try making divinity on a rainy day and see what I mean.  Well, on second thought, don’t.  You will just be wasting your ingredients; just take my word for it instead.  I learned the hard way!  By the way, I found this recipe at www.verybestbaking.com.  The only change I made was to use pecans instead of walnuts.

This recipe lived up to its names.  It is easy and turned out great!

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 cup chopped & toasted pecans

1 tsp vanilla extract

Line a 8 or 9 inch square baking dish with foil and set aside.  Combine chocolate chips & milk in a heavy saucepan.  Warm over low to low-medium heat, stirring until smooth.  Remove from heat and nuts and vanilla.

Spread evenly into the foil-lined pan.  Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until firm.  Lift the fudge out of the pan and peel off the foil.  Cut into 48 pieces and enjoy!  Come back next week for a great peanut butter fudge recipe!

Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by Scharffen Berger.

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One of the recipe e-mail newsletters that I subscribe to is from Kraft Foods.  There are always easy, delicious recipes for main dishes and desserts, alike.  This is one of those recipes. 

I had bought a few Granny Smith apples at the grocery to bake something, I just didn’t know what at the time.  When I received this recipe, I knew I had to try it!  It is so easy and so good.  The only thing I changed from the original was the caramel sauce.  The original recipe called for melting caramel candies with milk.  I did not have any caramel candies, but I did have caramel ice cream topping so I used that instead.

1 pkg yellow cake mix

1 3.4oz pkg instant vanilla pudding

1 cup water

4 eggs

1/3 cup oil

3 Granny Smith apples, peeled and chopped

Caramel ice cream topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a Bundt pan.  Here is a little side note:  I have read other people extolling the virtues of Baker’s Joy, which is a non-stick spray that includes flour for prepping pans.  I splurged a little at the grocery store and bought a can.  Love it!  It worked great for the Bundt pan and got in all of the nooks and crannies.

Beat first 5 ingredients on low speed until blended.  Beat on high for 2 minutes.  Stir in apples and pour into the prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 15 minutes.  Loosen cake from sides of pan and invert on to a cake plate or wire rack.  Cool completely.

Just look at those apple pieces in there.  Yum!  That is the great thing about Granny Smith apples.  Even after baking for an hour, the pieces are still crunchy.

When you are ready to serve, place a slice of cake on a plate and drizzle with caramel sauce.

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