use real butter

Recipe: peanut butter truffles

You know when you get sick and you feel awful and then when you’re well again it’s completely amazeballs awesome? That’s me times a million. I get that same feeling of elation as I would every time I came out of a chemo round. It makes me want to burst through the front door and go running into the mountains. Because I was sick for most of last week, I decided to lay low over the holiday, listen to my body and rest. I do get a little stir crazy after a few days indoors, but managed to find several projects to keep me occupied. And it helped to just stay off the computer.

cardboard tube light saber fight: the light saber lost

nothing beats a hot bowl of chinese noodle soup when you’re sick

We had received a club shipment of sparkling wine the week prior – four magnums. I was on the mend, so we decided to have some folks over to help us put a dent in the bubbles over the weekend. I mean, magnums are so festive, no? I was psyched to be able to cook for friends or do anything for that matter! We were treated to a blazing sunset off the deck and an evening spent with wonderful people. I’m feeling good and ready to plunge into January!

bubbles

i had to stop folding dumplings to run out and catch this one

Jeremy and I walked off the party food Sunday afternoon. It had been a week since I’d been outside in the woods or even remotely active and I missed it. It’s my battery charger to get out and breathe that clean air, to walk through the pristine snow. And now that I’m nearly back to normal, I can look at the computer monitor without getting a headache. In the baking madness of mid December, I dug up an old recipe my elementary school teacher had made for my class back in the 70s. They’re called peanut butter truffles, but I always thought of them as peanut butter balls. It called for margarine in the filling and paraffin wax in the coating, so I made the appropriate adjustments.

butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, peanut butter, confectioners sugar, butter

That’s right, I subbed butter for the margarine (we don’t use margarine on this blog, EVER) and omitted the paraffin wax altogether. It’s a simple treat to make, which is probably why my teacher thought it would be a good project for her class of second graders. I just remember bringing home a small canister filled with cupcake papers that had three peanut butter balls in each paper and wanting to show my grandma what we had made that day in school.

beat the butter and peanut butter together

add the confectioner’s sugar

it should be fluffy when mixed

I haven’t made these in a long long time. I used organic ingredients where possible and mixed the filling in no time with my stand mixer. I considered skipping the butterscotch chips and just tempering dark chocolate for the coating, but there was that whole nostalgia thing going on in my head. So the butterscotch chips stayed. But if you are interested in tempering chocolate for a coating, I describe the seed method in this post.

grab a pinch of peanut butter filling

roll into balls

now melt the chips

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: shredded brussels sprouts salad

The crush of self-imposed holiday-related deadlines looms large at Butter headquarters. We don’t even celebrate anything in particular and I’ve got a little bit of the freak out going on. So I needed something easy and full of crunchy vegetables to balance the ungodly amount of baked goods I’m cranking out of my kitchen.

brussels sprouts, walnuts, pecorino, lemon, salt, pepper, mustard, olive oil

The first time I had Brussels sprouts was in the NASA cafeteria during a summer internship. I generally loved vegetables as a kid because my mom didn’t cook them to death, but served them bright, fresh, and full of flavor and nutrients. I popped a sprout into my mouth and *squish*. It didn’t taste bad, it tasted sad. Fast forward a decade to my reintroduction to the oft-maligned Brussels sprouts – that time roasted – and we’ve been enjoying a love affair ever since.

peel any discolored or blemished outer leaves

slice thin by hand, by mandoline, or by food processor (slicing or shredding blade)

separate the slices in a large bowl

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate cassata cake

It’s cake season. This means that it is cool enough for me to want to turn my oven on. It means that it is cool enough that I am willing to work with chocolate. Even so, making a cake can fill me with dread and be downright frustrating at times – mostly because of elevation issues. I’m always keen to try new recipes, but hate the idea of wasting time, energy, money, and good wholesome ingredients on cakes that fail. A recipe tester, I am not. But this cake has been bouncing in my head since October.

let’s make some candied orange and lemon peels (lemons, orange, sugar)

slice the peel off

combine sugar and water to make a syrup

simmered peels (2 hours)

I have never had an authentic Italian cassata before. The only reason I knew anything about cassata was that I had made an adaptation from Marcel Desaulnier’s Death by Chocolate which involves yellow spongecake soaked in rum and layered with a shaved chocolate pastry cream rather than the traditional ricotta cheese filling. I read that Italian cassatas are commonly served around Easter. But when I had lunch at Pizzeria Locale last month, I saw cassata on the dessert menu and impulsively ordered it.

chocolate chiffon cake: oil, eggs, confectioners sugar, milk, flour, cocoa, sugar, almond extract

mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients (except egg whites and granulated sugar)

folding whipped egg whites into the chocolate batter

pour the batter in buttered pans lined with parchment paper

What arrived was a slice of chocolate cassata: chocolate spongecake with a creamy, almost buttery ricotta filling studded with pistachios, and all topped with a nice dark chocolate glaze. Brilliant. I had to attempt this at home – it was so lovely! I did a little research and decided to make a layer cake… because I am partial to layers. There would be four components: chocolate spongecake, ricotta cheese filling with candied orange peel, chopped pistachios, and shaved chocolate, a boozy simple syrup to soak the cake layers, and a dark chocolate glaze.

ricotta cheese, vanilla extract, grated chocolate, chopped candied citrus peel, pistachios, cinnamon, powdered sugar

adding vanilla

stirring in the pistachios, candied peels, and chocolate

**Jump for more butter**