Reese’s Crumble

So now that the Buttermilk Chronicles are over, let’s have a look at the next thing I decided to make. This one is partially influenced by my wanting to clean out the pantry (of Hershey’s chocolate chips and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). Although to be honest, I intentionally picked up the Reese’s after Halloween at half-price with the intention of using it in something.

You might not know, but I have a somewhat personal relationship with Hershey’s and Reese’s. (Reese’s is owned by Hershey.) I grew up in central Pennsylvania, home to wondrous snack foods as I’ve previously mentioned. It’s also home to Hershey’s.

We spent time hanging out at Hersheypark and Hershey’s Chocolate World. (Ah, that wonderful theme song.) In elementary school I had a friend whose dad worked at Reese’s as an accountant (if memory serves me right). They lived even closer to Hershey than I did and had season’s passes to Hersheypark. I remember going to sleepovers at my friend’s house where we hung out at Hersheypark all day. In middle school, I remember a class trip going there to celebrate our graduation.

I may be a little biased about Hershey’s chocolate. I think it’s really good. I always thought everyone else did as well, but it turns out that’s not the case. In high school I was on an exchange program with an Austrian high school. (Technically it was a Gymnasium.) One of the places we took them was Hershey. I asked my new Austrian friend what he thought of Hershey’s chocolate. He was not too impressed. I was incredulous at the time, but I get it now. There is other good chocolate out there, and Hershey’s isn’t to everyone’s liking.

So this recipe was very easy to put together and very easy to clean-up. I did all the measuring with a 1/4 cup and a 1/2 teaspoon. Everything was multiples of those. I also used some bowls and utensils which went in the dishwasher. But I was just left cleaning the 1/4 cup and 1/2 teaspoon and mini food processor. (I’ll get to that in a moment.) While I normally like to use a scale, this turned out just as easy. (I didn’t feel like looking up conversions for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and chocolate chips.)

As an aside, I wanted to talk to you about brown sugar. Why? Well, we used to have a problem with keeping brown sugar fresh, even though we kept it sealed in its original bag, which was then sealed inside a bigger plastic bag. But now, we have these glass jars that we keep dry goods in. It keeps the brown sugar nice and fresh. I love it. It makes it easy having fresh brown sugar for recipes.

For the oats, I had to do some research. I couldn’t find quick oats at the store I went to. I found out I could substitute rolled oats. I got some of those and used the mini food processor to make them into smaller pieces. This effectively turns the rolled oats into quick oats.

I used Hershey’s milk chocolate chips leftover from another recipe. I had almost a cup. I used leftover semi-sweet chocolate chunks and chips to finish up making the 1 1/4 cups needed. Instead of using Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and chopping them, I used mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. It was hard measuring them, because they didn’t fit neatly into measuring cups, but I made some allowances and let them go over a bit because there was a lot of empty space in the measuring cup.

Since they were Halloween candy, they were individually packaged, like 5 mini Reese’s to a small bag. I had to open all of these individual little bags. It was almost the entire package of candy. It was a lot of waste. Note to self for the future: do not get Halloween candy individually wrapped like that.

As I said, it was easy to put it all together. I mixed everything in a big regular bowl instead of a small mixing bowl. (That way I could put it in the dishwasher instead of having to hand wash it.) I waited until being done with the mixing to preheat the oven. Then instead of greasing the dish I used parchment paper. I pressed it in with a spoon at first, but then I realized I needed to use my hands.

After the 8 minute range it wasn’t ready, nor after 10. I let it go for about 12 minutes. Maybe I hadn’t made the oats small enough? (The research I had done indicated that bigger oat pieces would take longer.) I was basing “doneness” on the recipe saying it should be starting to brown. It wasn’t really, but I was afraid I was cooking it too long.

It had really risen a lot. I should have taken a picture, because it was super poofy. (Super Poofy! A new superhero movie coming to theaters near you!) When I put the chocolate on top it deflated very quickly. Then I piled it up with the peanut butter cups. Then I crumbled up and sprinkled on the topping by hand.

I baked it for 15 minutes. I wasn’t sure if it was enough or not but given that the first half needed more, I thought it made sense to do the second half a little more too. I did 2 more minutes and then checked it. Then 1 more. Then I left it in the oven for a couple of minutes after I turned the oven off. It got nice and brown. It smelled nice. It sounded nice too, being that it was all bubbly and such.

I put it on the counter to cool. It was late. So after I let it cool, I stuck it in the fridge overnight, as I wasn’t going to eat any that night. (Shocking, I know.) It still smelled nice and oaty.

I tried it the next day. It was kinda awesome. I hadn’t taken it out soon enough so it was a little hard. It was much better the following day at room temperature. There’s a nice mix between the two parts of the dessert: the chocolate and peanut butter part & the oat part. The oat part makes you think for a moment you’re eating something hearty and wholesome. And then you taste the chocolate and peanut butter, and you realize what an unholy mess of a dessert it is. Delicious, decadent, wonderful, and ridiculous.

One note: the chocolate and peanut butter hadn’t melted so much, so I tried microwaving a piece at one point to see if that would help. I wouldn’t recommend it. It kinda fell apart and didn’t help with the melting.

I’m wondering if the mini Reese’s made a difference as compared to the chopped Reese’s? Or if I put in too many when I was trying to measure them? It’s also possible that they melted the right amount and that’s how they were supposed to be.

I would happily recommend making these. Not just because of my enjoyment of all things Hershey, but also because they were very easy to make and really blew people’s socks off wherever they went. More specifically, wherever I took them. They didn’t go anywhere by themselves.

Do you have a favorite recipe involving Hershey’s chocolate? Do you have a favorite hometown chocolate or candy of your own? I’m always happy to learn something new. Until next week!

Recipe courtesy of Oh Sweet Basil.

Cinnamon Sugar Mini Donut Muffins

This is part four and, sadly, the end of this cycle of The Buttermilk Chronicles. If you’ve been following along, there have been 3 different biscuit recipes so far. There was the first one (blue cheese and scallion), the second one (gluten-free feta and scallion), and the third one which was straight up buttermilky goodness. I promised you it wouldn’t be all biscuits, though, and today I am keeping my promise. These are silly and delicious little desserts, and they’re very easy to make. They look like a muffin and taste kinda like a donut. The cinnamon and sugar also give them a nice little crunchy texture.

A few things you should know (about this recipe at least, I can’t speak for your life in general): I used applesauce instead of an egg. I didn’t have any eggs, and I didn’t want to get them just for this recipe, as that might have started a cycle of The Egg Chronicles. (The silver lining would be that it would answer the age old question: which came first the buttermilk or the egg.) I finished up the last of the buttermilk. Kudos to me! Seriously, it took a lot of dedication. I’m not saying I’m ready for a marathon, but I was able to see this through. And I used 1 1/2 tsps cinnamon in the topping. (I almost ran out.)

This was my first time using my new mini muffin tray. (It’s actually called “petite”, which is slightly bigger than mini. Who knew?) I didn’t have floured cooking spray, so I used regular cooking spray and threw some flour on top. It was a little messy. Shocking, I know.

I used my trusty KitchenAid with the paddle attachment. I can’t remember if I’ve used the paddle attachment before. I use the whisk attachment by default generally. In retrospect, I think some recipes might have asked for the paddle attachment, but I haven’t been paying attention. Oops. Generally applesauce is a good egg substitute. But I could tell after beating it that it wasn’t light and fluffy like it would have been with an egg.

I filled up the muffin tray. They came up mostly to the top for all 24 in the pan. I tried baking them for 9 minutes, but they didn’t seem ready. I tried the other 2 minutes, but they still didn’t seem ready. I did an extra 2 and they were ready. They smelled nice and cinnamony. (That’s a word, right?) They didn’t rise as much as I thought they should have. I think that was partially because the applesauce didn’t do the same job as the egg. Plus, the tins are a little bigger than mini tins, so they had more space to fill.

I then made the coating which was easy enough.

I flipped the tray over to release the muffins. A few fell out, but not all. I tapped it a few times and many more came out. (Mostly right side up! I guess they’re like cats in that way.) The last few didn’t come out on their own. I had to cut around the edges (with a plastic knife of course) to loosen them and remove them. I could see on the bottom of a few of them that the flour residue had baked. So there was probably too much flour in those.

Butter, the first part of the topping.

Cinnamon sugar, the second part of the topping.

Dipping them in butter and cinnamon sugar was easy enough, although they seemed kinda small to handle. I almost ran out of topping. The last couple didn’t get quite as much.

I made them late at night. And so I had to do cleanup late at night. I might bake more if I didn’t have to do any cleanup. Often I don’t have to, as my wife is awesome and does cleanup much of the time. But she was already asleep, and having to do it tonight reminded me that I don’t like doing it so much.

And for the $64,000 question: how did they taste? I thought they were good, but not amazing. I can think of four things I did different than the recipe: the tin was a different size (petite vs mini), the cooking spray was different (regular plus flour instead of floured spray), I used applesauce instead of an egg, and I baked them a little longer. Of all those, I think it was the applesauce substituting for the egg that caused the problem. They were still good, they were just not light and fluffy and muffiny. (That’s a word, too, right?) They reminded me a little of the apple snickerdoodle blondies. They had a similar flavor, and I had made the same substitution there. And in both cases they were a little bit more spongy than fluffy.

As I said, I thought they were decent, but not awesome. In the interest of full disclosure, my wife disagreed with me. She thought they were great. And when she took them into work, her coworkers agreed with her. I’m very glad people enjoyed them. I think my only hesitation with them is that I believe that they can be so much more. Perhaps next time I will try them without any substitutions and see how they turn out.

So thank you for following along with this cycle of The Buttermilk Chronicles. There may be more in the future, for wherever there is Buttermilk, The Chronicles are not far behind. But next week we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. (As much as any programming on here is regular. 🙂 ) But in the meantime, I’m curious to know: do you have a good egg substitute? Is it applesauce? Is it something else? I always love having more tools in my toolbox, so I appreciate any help you can give.

Recipe courtesy of Averie Cooks.

Buttermilk Biscuits

Welcome to the third part of the buttermilk chronicles. (Coming soon to a theater near you!) While this third part is biscuits as well, it’s not all biscuits. I promise you I haven’t turned this into a biscuit only blog. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 🙂 ) It all started because I got some buttermilk so I could make biscuits, but then I had a bunch of buttermilk left. I found the first recipe was good, but I wanted to tweak it and try using up some ingredients, and that was the second part.

Which brings us to part three this week. We decided to make chili for dinner, so I thought I would make biscuits to go with that. I know, I had just made some, but these were different and I thought they would go better with the chili.

These biscuits were similar to the previous recipe, but they were slightly different. There were no add ins and there were slightly different quantities. I also made 1 1/3 times the recipe to bring it back up to what it was originally: 12 biscuits. I used on the higher end of the sugar (around 25 grams). I wasn’t intending to necessarily use that much, but I accidentally dumped more in to the bowl I was measuring in, and it was hard to get it all back out cleanly especially since the bowl had been used to measure other stuff which left residue I didn’t want to put back in the sugar.

Notice the residue from the previous round of biscuits on the parchment paper.

Seriously, aren’t these the cutest little biscuits?

I used a pastry blender for the butter. (I’m so glad I got that. It’s been worth its weight in gold.) Because the dough was a little dry, I had to add a little bit more buttermilk at the end. I think I hadn’t shaken it well enough, so it was a little clumpy at this point. I added maybe another tablespoon or so.

Fresh from the oven.

I made drop biscuits. I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup to measure them in. They looked really cute. I left out the baking sheets with the parchment on them from the previous recipe, as it was only a couple of hours in between the two batches of biscuits. (Yes, we were swimming in biscuits. Not literally, of course. And again, not that there would be anything wrong with that.)

I did 12 minutes at first, switching back to front and top to bottom halfway through. They needed a couple more minutes after that. I let them cool a little bit before digging in.

We had them with the aforementioned chili. They were awesome. I can see why these are called “My Favorite Buttermilk Biscuits” by smitten kitchen. They’re pretty amazing: light and fluffy, crispy outsides, buttery and delicious. They’re exactly what you want a biscuit to be like. (Well, I can’t speak for you, but they’re exactly what I want a biscuit to be like.) We ate up a bunch with dinner. I can see how they might be more breakfasty, but I can’t see a reason not to eat them with any meal. They’re kinda amazing. Then again, breakfast is probably my favorite meal of the day.

Chili con carne con biscuit. 🙂

Do you have a favorite buttermilk biscuit recipe you’d like to share? These were delicious, and we ate them up pretty quickly, but I understand there are lots of good recipes out there. I would not consider it a burden in any way to have to do multiple taste tests. 😉

Recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.

Gluten-Free Feta Scallion Drop Biscuits

Welcome back. This week finds us with the second installment of the buttermilk chronicles. If you recall from last week, I had made a lovely biscuit recipe requiring buttermilk. I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally keep buttermilk in the house, so I had to get some for that recipe. The carton I bought had four cups of buttermilk in it, but the recipe only needed one. It would be great if I could get buttermilk in smaller containers, but since I wasn’t able to, I decided I wasn’t going to let the buttermilk go to waste.

I came up with a serious plan. I plotted out just how I was going to use the other cups of buttermilk. What I came up with was the following. Make one more version of the same biscuits from last week, make a different batch of biscuits for dinner that night, and make a dessert. All the recipes required buttermilk, and if I calculated correctly, I would be very close to using up all the buttermilk, which means I had a little bit extra, just in case. (By the way, when I was searching through recipes, I found several recipes which mentioned “using up extra buttermilk”. So I’m obviously not the only one with this issue.)

Mmm. Scallions.

This recipe is based on the blue cheese scallion drop biscuits from my last post. Those went over so well, I thought I would make some more. I also wanted to use up the ingredients I had: lots of buttermilk (see above) and scallions.

Feta, are you ready for your close-up?

I used five scallions (instead of the four in the recipe) in order to use what was left. I had run out of blue cheese, but I had a ton of feta, so I used feta. As with the blue cheese, it was conveniently one package for the 1 1/2 cups needed. The feta was much easier to crumble, however.

The other change is that this time I used gluten-free flour. Since I had already made these without any issues, I thought if I did them again, I would want to do something different. Yes, I had already decided to use feta, but I wanted to do something more adventurous. I had a ton of gluten-free flour and I was running out of regular flour, so I thought I would give it a shot. (Running out because all of the recipes in the buttermilk chronicles were made within a few days of each other.) I didn’t use my regular Trader Joe’s Gluten Free All Purpose Flour as I had run out of that. I used what I had handy which was Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All-Purpose Baking Flour. They suggest using xanthan gum with it, but I couldn’t immediately find any, so I thought I would just give it a shot without it.

This was my ingenious method for splitting the dough into 12 equal parts, as mentioned last week.

They came together alright, but they were maybe a little too dry. I added in some extra buttermilk, a tablespoon or two, which I had available due to my careful calculations. After that the dough looked better. They were a different consistency. I might have also flattened the dough out differently. (They also looked like they expanded a bit more when they baked.) It’s also possible that it was due to a difference with the gluten-free flour.

The first sheet.

They were as easy to put together as last time. My wife helped by cutting the scallions and doing the clean-up. (Thanks hon!) I baked them for 16 minutes. Eight minutes, then I rotated them top to bottom and front to back, and then eight more.

The second sheet.

As a side note, I listened to the soundtrack to Hamilton while making this batch of biscuits. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a Broadway rap-musical based on the life of Alexander Hamilton. Yes, that Alexander Hamilton. It’s absolutely amazing. My wife and I saw at as an anniversary present to ourselves a few weeks ago. (My wife had already seen it off-Broadway and insisted I see it as well.) It’s brilliantly crafted and brilliantly performed. For history junkies such as myself, it was an extra treat. If you haven’t seen it, I can’t encourage you enough to go see it. It’s well worth your time. Listening to the soundtrack made working on the biscuits extra fun.

Ready to bake biscuit close-up!

So… back to the biscuits. After 16 minutes they weren’t quite ready. I baked them for another minute and a half. They seemed done at that point. They looked a little bit flatter and more like biscuit biscuits, instead of drop biscuits. (Some people had thought the previous ones were scones.)

Fresh from the oven!

And as far as the most important question: they were yummy! We ate them while they were still warm, but we did let them cool on the rack a little bit first. The feta was not nearly as strong as the blue cheese as far as smell or taste, but the biscuits were still delicious. They had a nice crunchy outside and a nice squishy inside. They seemed a little bit more savory somehow. They tasted like something else, and I couldn’t put my finger on it until I was almost done with one. They reminded me of spanakopita (spinach pie) because of the feta. They were yummy, yummy, yummy.

Just chillin’.

I didn’t get any thank you haikus this time, but everyone enjoyed them nonetheless. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but there seemed to be a little difference between this gluten-free flour, and the one I normally use. I’ll have to try it in a few more recipes to see if I can put my finger on it. In the meantime, I’ll say this is one more recipe successfully adapted. And one more recipe successfully gluten-freeified. (Yes, that’s another industry term.) If you have any other biscuit recipes you love, gluten-free recipes I should know about, or great recipes for using up buttermilk, just let me know!

Recipe lightly adapted from smitten kitchen.

Blue Cheese Scallion Drop Biscuits

Little did I know this would be the start of the Buttermilk Chronicles. It’s kinda like the Chronicles of Narnia, except without the lion, the witch, or the wardrobe. And not as epic. And not nearly as long. But other than all that, really, totally the same. 😉 Because this saga started without me really knowing I was undertaking it, you’ll hear more about it in future posts. But for now, on to the biscuits!

The inspiration for this recipe was pretty mundane, about as far from epic as you could get. It was born of practicality. Like many people, I don’t have a lot of time for breakfast. So I grab something I store-bought. It’s generally decent, but usually full of sugar. I wanted to have something better. So, I decided to make it myself. I went looking for muffin recipes, as I figured that would be my best option, but before I got to any great muffins I came across this. I really love smitten kitchen, but I hadn’t used one of her recipes in a while. I knew I would have nothing to worry about though, because when has she ever steered me wrong? (Quick answer: never. Not once.)

The recipe was very simple. I did have to go out and get scallions, blue cheese, and buttermilk, though. They were so easy to make. (How easy? Upon delighting in one of them that I brought in to work, and me mentioning to him how easy they were to make, one of my baking averse coworkers asked for the recipe so he could try them out.) I measured out the ingredients. I chopped up the scallions, mixed it all together. And voilà! The blue cheese took the longest. I had gotten a chunk of blue cheese and had to crumble it cut it up myself. I didn’t mix in the butter with my hands. Rather, I used my trusty pastry blender. (When I say “trusty”, I mean I trust it to blend dough for use in baked goods. I don’t trust it to water my plants or do my taxes. I have my limits.)

The most interesting challenge was: how do you measure a bowl of dough into 12 equal portions? Consult a zodiac chart? Ask Pythagoras? Guess? This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with this issue, so I’ve been working on an easy way to do it. Here’s the “trick”. I smooshed all the dough down into the bottom of the bowl and spread it out as evenly as I could. (For those keeping track, yes, “smoosh” is an industry term.) Then I used a knife and cut a line down the middle. Then a line perpendicular to that, so now it was in quarters. Then I cut each quarter into three wedges, which made 12 total portions. It wasn’t exact, I was eyeballing it all the way, but it was pretty good. Maybe it’s silly, but I’m proud of myself for coming up with that. It’s not a big deal, but it’s not insignificant.

I lined the baking sheets with pre-cut parchment sheets. (They’re handy.) I didn’t have one baking sheet big enough, so I used two. I scooped out the 12 pieces of dough and put them on the sheets. I tried to put both sheets in the middle as directed, but one sheet was too long to fit so I had to turn it sideways. I put the other sheet beneath it.

I baked them for half the time then rotated top and bottom & front and back to even things out before cooking for the other half. I cooked them for the minimum amount of time. 16 minutes, 8 in each half. They were done. Nice and brown. I pulled them off (parchment paper and all) right onto the cooling rack. I let them cool a little bit before trying one.

Wow. It had started while they were baking, the scent wafting in from the kitchen. It was the blue cheese. It wasn’t some lame-o cheese, this was some serious cheese. And how did they taste? Very nice. The biscuit itself was kinda amazing. It was soft, moist, and rich. Yummy. I didn’t taste the scallions that much, but the blue cheese? Wow, you could really taste it. It wasn’t overpowering, but definitely present. (These are not to be had if you don’t like blue cheese.)

I brought some in to work the next day. Everyone went gaga over them. I shared some with people in my department. Other people were walking by and were like, whoa what’s that? So I shared a few with others too. People really, really liked them.

I had had one the night before fresh out of the oven, but I didn’t actually get to have another one until after work that day. (I got busy handing them out and then caught up in, you know, doing work. 😉 ) When I got home and tried another one, I realized why people enjoyed them so much. They were even better. Much better than the night before. I’m not sure if they needed time for the flavors to sink in or what, but they were much, much better the second day.

My wife also brought some in to work. Her coworkers loved them, too. One of them even got me a card to say thank you, and wrote a haiku. This is officially my first thank you haiku:

I am so happy

All for this morning’s surprise

Does a snoopy dance

So these were definitely a good choice. But I’m still on the lookout for other recipes. Do you have any good recipes for breakfasty things that are good on the go? I’d love to try some other ones out.

Recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen.