Snickers Pie

Hooray! Another heavenly peanut butter dessert!

I'm feeling in a bit of a baking rut; I'm kind of sick of baking mass quantities of the same old things, kind of sick of getting up early to do it.

I take my job very seriously, and I'm used to receiving praise for it. I love watching customers approach the dessert case with wide eyes, clutching their friend's arm and gasping "look...just look at all that..." I love when they find out I'm the baker and they sigh "I just love your desserts!"

Buuut, recently I heard about some customer complaints, and I have no idea what could have gone wrong. It makes me feel extremely insecure. I'm going in to bake in the morning and I'm actually nervous. I'm an approval suck, it's true. It's funny how one bad comment can wipe out the memory of all the good ones. That's true about everything in life, I suppose.

Anyway, this weekend is the Holiday Market downtown (8th st and Reynolds) from 12-6 and it should be good. Santa will be there and live Christmas trees and FREE chik-fil-a sandwiches. I'll be there with loads of good bread and baked goods like sourdough, ciabatta, rosemary, black olive, mediterranean stuffed loaf, bleu cheese stuffed loaf, cinnamon rolls, brownies, oat fudge bars and more! If you're in the Augusta area, make sure to stop by.

Now, on to this luscious snickers pie, which is a winner guaranteed to improve any bad baking day. There's several steps but they're not hard and the result is phenomenal.

Snickers Pie, Adapted from Martha Steward

Oreo crust:

1 9-in springform pan.

about 2 cups finely ground oreos (a food processor does the job in a jiffy, but you can also crush the cookies in a heavy duty ziplock bag with a blunt object like a rolling pin)

3/4-1 stick melted butter

Caramel Layer:

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

3/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sour cream or 1/2 stick butter

1 cup roasted salted peanuts

Peanut Butter Mousse:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter

1/2 t vanilla

1 cup heavy cream, whipped into medium-stiff peaks

Chocolate Ganache Layer

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream

Directions:

1. Make the Oreo Crust. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the ground Oreos with the butter and press the mixture onto the bottom and sides of the springform pan. I like to use the side of a measuring cup to do this. Use your fingers if necessary. Bake the crust for 10 minutes so its nice and crispy. Remove from oven and let cool.

2. Make the Caramel. Combine the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat it over medium-high heat on the stove. It will take about 10 minutes to turn amber, but watch it carefully, swirling the pan occasionally, because it can burn easily. Remove from heat once a dark amber color and carefully whisk in the 3/4 cup heavy cream. It will bubble and steam and be very hot, so watch your hands. If there are any caramel lumps, reheat the caramel until smooth. Whisk in the sour cream or butter. Transfer to a heat proof bowl and cool, about 45 minutes. Once the caramel is fairly cool, fold in the 1 cup of peanuts. Spread the mixture evenly in the bottom of the oreo crust. Refrigerate while you make the Peanut Butter Mousse.

3. Make the Peanut Butter Mousse. In a stand mixer or with a hand held mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the 1/2 cup powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add the 1 1/4 cup Peanut Butter and the vanilla and beat until smooth.

Whip the 1 cup heavy cream in a clean bowl until medium-stiff peaks form, and then fold 1/3 the whipped cream into the Peanut Butter mixture to lighten it. Fold the rest of the whipped cream into the Peanut Butter in two additions.

4. Spread the Peanut Butter Mousse evenly on top of the caramel layer, taking care that the two don't mix. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

5. Make the Chocolate Ganache. Pour the final 1 cup heavy cream into a microwave safe container and microwave for about 40 seconds, depending on your microwave. You can also heat it on the stop until bubbly around the edges. Dump the 8 oz chocolate into the hot cream (or pour the cream over the chocolate) and let sit for 1 minute to melt. Whisk until smooth. Pour the Chocolate Ganache over the peanut butter mousse and spread evenly.

Refrigerate a final 30-45 minutes and you're done! Slice and enjoy!

Mint Oreo Ice Cream

I'm back! I'm so sorry I left you for so long. It's been the most hectic month. I saw some of you this past weekend and the general consensus is that you're sick of seeing the planter every time you check out the Fox Fix.

If I may offer some excuses- we packed up our house and shoved everything in our new one and spent a long weekend at Spencer and Liz's wedding and I had the worst case of poison ivy EVER. (I have no idea where I could've gotten the poison ivy, which is pretty scary. I feel like it could get me again at any time. My left eye and forehead swelled up so bad I looked like one of the aliens in the movie Avatar. Thus, in addition to everything else, I was also on steroids this month. Lemme tell you, I was a real joy to be around.)

We're now living surrounded by boxes. Our new place is about half the size of the old one, especially if you consider that we had a basement before where shoved everything we didn't want around. So slowly, slowly we're moving things around and unpacking. It's like trying to solve a rubiks cube, this place is so packed with stuff.

I'll share one before picture with you, just so you're duly impressed when the after pictures come in who knows how many weeks or months. Our mattress is on our couches in the middle room and is an oasis where we hang out, sleep and have meals.

What's that you say? This is a food blog? Oh, right. I'm supposed to share a recipe with you.

I actually have about 15 different posts that have been building up over this month, because I haven't stopped making things (only stopped showing up here), so I'm going to make an effort to post every day this week to try to catch up. So stay tuned!

If I may be so bold...this recipe may actually be worth the wait. It's Mint Oreo Ice Cream, based on a recipe from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Made with fresh mint, it is perfectly creamy and utter bliss. It's pretty much convinced me that I will always make custard style ice cream. It's definitely worth the extra effort.

And speaking of worth-it things, if you have any interest at all in making ice cream, you need to buy The Perfect Scoop. It's chock-full of fantastic tips and explanations and recipes, from ice creams to sorbet to gelato to sauces and beyond. Lebovitz's blog is excellent and full of recipes, too.

Ingredients:

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups heavy cream

pinch of salt

2 cups lightly packed fresh mint leaves

5 large egg yolks

Warm the milk, sugar, 1 cup of cream and salt in a small saucepan. Stir in the mint leaves, cover the pot, and remove it from heat. Let it sit at room temperature for an hour to infuse the mint flavor into the milk mixture.

Strain the milk into a medium saucepan; discard the leaves. Depending on your mint, your milk might be a lovely shade of green. Mine was just barely tinted. Take a sip- mint milk! Pour the other cup of cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top. If you want to speed the cooling process that will need to happen later, you can put this bowl of cream into a larger bowl of ice.

Re-warm the mint-milk. In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolk. Slowly pour the mint milk into the yolks, whisking all the time. This stabilizes them so they don't curdle immediately when heated in the pot. Pour the yolk-mint-milk back into the pot.

Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Here is where I screwed up- I forgot I wasn't making pastry cream or something, and I boiled the milk. And it it curdled. So don't boil the milk- it needs to reach a temperature of about 175, but much higher and the eggs will curdle.

However, if you like me scramble your eggs, don't lose hope. Do what I did and put the warm liquid in a blender and run til smooth. Then you're back on track.

Pour the custard through the strainer into the cream bowl and stir until cool over the ice bath.

Then chill until absolutely cool in the refrigerator. If you try to churn too-warm custard, the final product's texture will be off. So be patient! And when it's cool, just freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions. OR this icecream does perfectly well if you just put it in your freezer and stir it every half hour or so, more often at the end. So if you're planning to be at home for the night, this is a perfectly viable option.

I added chopped oreos to my mint ice cream, which was very tasty. You could also try chocolate or brownie bits. However, the mint flavor is so fresh and creamy and unlike store bought (nasty green overpowering mint extract) icecream, that you could definitely enjoy it with no add-ins.

I'm very impatient for an excuse to make this bliss again. Come visit and we'll make ice cream!

No Bake Cookies n Cream Cheesecake

This cheesecake sets a little looser than regular cheesecake, so next time I might use the whole packet of gelatin (I think it's supposed to be 1 T). But it's AWESOME if you're pressed for time- just make it the night before you need it.

There's no getting up in the middle of the night to take it out of the oven, and then again later in the night to put it in the fridge. (this is my usual routine with cheesecakes.) Just mix, pop it into the fridge, and wake up to cheesecake.

(Below: Dissolving the gelatin in a water bath)

Cookies n Cream Cheesecake recipe adapted from Cheesecake by Pamela Clark

Ingredients:

10-oz oreos (or more, if you're me)

2 t gelatin

3 T water

13 oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1-1/2 cup heavy cream

6 oz white chocolate, melted. (I used the microwave for this one. Just nuke in 20 second intervals, stirring between each)

Okay, Let's talk about the crust. The recipe is actually for 8 individual cheesecakes made in sections of PVC pipes...but lacking those I made it in a 9-in springform. In the PVC pipes, you just stick a whole oreo at the bottom for the crust. I preformed my usual butter and crumbs crust, but because it wasn't baked, just chilled, the crust stuck to the bottom of the pan badly. So I would either spray your pan first or figure out some other crust. Maybe spray the bottom then mix the crumbs with some melted chocolate. Worth some experimentation.

Step 1. Chop oreos into quarters. Save some for topping the cheesecake.

Step 2. Sprinkle gelatin over the water in a heatproof cup. Heat in a pan of simmering water until gelatin dissolves. Cool 5 min.

Step 3. Beat cream cheese, vanilla and sugar in a bowl until smooth, then beat in cream. Stir in white chocolate, gelatin and chopped cookies.

Step 4. Pour into prepared pan with crust, refrigerate overnight.

Step 5. (optional) Melt chocolate and pour in interesting swirls over the top.

I do love cookies n cream anything.