Browned Butter Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats

Browned butter. Peanut butter. Rice Krispies. A match made in food heaven, for sure.

Because if you can't like these, I'm not sure what's wrong with you. Oh, you're allergic to nuts? Well, fine. Then you can just make these without the peanut butter, like I've done in the past, and they'll still be perfectly yummy.

But if I had to choose? I'd probably pick the peanut butter version. Because I'm kind of in love with peanut butter. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nope!

Also? Rice krispy treats are really just one of the easiest things to make around. For real. If you need a quick little something to take on a picnic, for example, these would be easy and yummy. And easy in the kitchen is everyone's favorite.

Browned Butter Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 (10.5 ounce) package mini marshmallows
• 6 cups (about a half box) rice krispy cereal

Cooking Directions

1. Brown the butter in a large saucepan. If you've never browned butter before, it's pretty easy. Melt it in the saucepan on medium heat until it starts to foam up, it will eventually calm down and start to throw a nutty aroma up at your face. Once it's doing that, add in your peanut butter, salt, and marshmallows and stir them around and around and around until they're all melted into a nice smooth gooeyness.
2. Turn off the heat and add in your rice krispies, mixing around with a wooden spoon until they are well coated in the peanut butter marshmallows. Dump that into a buttered 8 x8 inch pan and press down with some butter or cooking-spray soaked fingers.
3. Let them set up for a bit, then cut 'em up into some bars and enjoy!

Recipe via Joy the Baker cookbook

As you can see, they fill up that 8x8 pan to the brim! If you want thinner krispies, you can always use a larger pan.

The peanut butter is just the right amount in these. Not overwhelming, but with just the right amount of "hey, that's peanut butter!"

Supernatural 7x19 "Of Grave Importance"

Oh look, a new episode! It's been awhile. I have to assume they'll be going nonstop to the finale now, right? RIGHT? Enough with the mini breaks, I say!

Anyway, the last new episode confirmed the suspicion that Bobby was still around as a ghost, and this week we get a full on Ghost Bobby episode. He's trying to get the boys to notice his tiny movements of the flask and drapes and whatnot, but his efforts are for naught at the moment. Instead, they get ready to meet up with another hunter named Annie, who we come to find out not only slept with Bobby, but also slept with Dean and soulless Sam. Girl's got some game!

Ghost Bobby is here, so his  poignant death earlier in the season now means nothing!

 She's in this town called Bodega Bay to investigate the Van Ness house, and asks the boys to meet up with her. When she doesn't show up to the meeting, however, they investigate, and that's when we go off into the ghost stories. Because once the boys show up, flask in tow, Ghost Bobby is able to see Ghost Annie, but seeing as they are both dead and, you know, ghosts, their reunion isn't all rainbows and puppies. Instead, they get some snarky ghost tips from another dude.

While this is going on, the boys are investigating the place, but finding nothing despite the many ghostly figures that we as an audience can see are everywhere. Thus stymied, they decide to go check on Annie's other research. Bobby is annoyed that he has to go along for the ride, though, because he wanted to stay with his hot ghost lady to figure out things from that side. Because, it turns out, while it seems like the gnarly large man was the culprit of all these untimely deaths, it was actually the namesake of the house, Whitman Van Ness. He's collecting ghosts from which he can draw power from, full on hand in the chest, burn 'em up style.

Back at the motel, Bobby gets zen enough to finally get the boys a message on the bathroom mirror. Well, if they had doubts before, they don't anymore. Ghost Bobby is here. They head back to the house, get some intel help from another of the ghosts, and hightail it out of there to find ole Whitman's bones to burn before he can do any more damage. Only problem? Whitman hitches a ride Bobby-style by leaving a key in Sam's pocket. And Bobby isn't there to help because he swiped his flask and left it in the house. Whoops.

While the boys rush off to the cemetery and nearly get driven off the road by Whitman's ghost, Bobby and Annie find his hiding place for all of the bodies. Yada yada, ghost fights, the boys burn the dude's bones just in time, etc. etc.

When they come back to the house this time, however, they are able to finally see Ghost Bobby in his otherworldly form of "flesh." Though it seems like he expects them to be happy about it, they're not quite there. Or, at least, Dean is especially twitchy about the whole thing, as it's not the natural order. I have to say I'm with Dean on this one. But since they already gave Bobby the hunter's funeral, they're not quite sure what to do now.

One thing is for certain: there's no way this ends well.

Random Thoughts:

- The Van Ness house really reminded me of the hotel they went to in season two's episode Playthings, particularly the outside.

- Same goes for the pier scene being reminiscent from Red Sky at Morning. Why I must notice these things and not just let them slide is a mystery.

- Seeing those ghosts just standing all over the place in the house the first time was perhaps one of the creepiest things I've ever seen on the show. CREEPY.

- I always find it a little bit convenient when they have these stories with random hunters that we've never heard of before with these involved backstories. All three of them got friendly with this Annie, and as far as I'm aware, this is the first time we've even heard her name, let alone met her.

- Honestly I'm not on board with the whole Ghost Bobby plot, but I'll try to refrain from complaining about it too much. I just don't like how trivial death has become on the show. It just lowers the stakes a lot.

Quotes:

Dean: She and I kinda went Hemingway this one time too.
Sam: All right. Well. That happens.
Dean: ... Wait, you too?

Annie: Wow. Dead. Ghost. Me. Three words you never want to use in a sentence.

Dean: We combed the crap out of this place. If we didn't find her...
Sam: It means someone didn't want us to.
Dean: Awesome. Let's walk right into that.

Dean: That's not odd.

Dean: Annie? ...Slimer?

Dean: I hate these indie films, nothing ever happens.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Blah. Blah blah. Blah blah blah. Oh wait. I'm supposed to be writing something fun and exciting and cool and blogger-y here, not just going with my dummy text! Yes, all of my dummy text in any form of writing consists of some form of "blah blah." "Blah blah exploring description blah," "Blah blah something happens here blah de blah." You know, inspiring stuff.

That said, this pound cake is actually inspiring. Well. Inspiring may be too strong a word for something like pound cake, but hey, we're gonna go with it. GO! WITH! IT!

Can I share something kinda weird? I was eating some of this the other day, and decided I wanted to toast it and put some butter on it, just to see. I thought to myself, is this pound cake blasphemy of sorts? And then my next thought, literally, was, "It's my pound cake, I'll do what I want!"

Yes. I have to justify things like eating food "weirdly" for myself. I don't know. Don't try to figure it out. Also? The toasted and buttered? Was pretty good. So there!

Anyway. Yes. Cream Cheese Pound Cake. It's moist, it's yummy, you can eat it for a breakfast or a dessert, particularly a dessert if you put some fruity or chocolatey stuff on top. But hey, it's perfectly yummy on its own as well. It's versatile! Also, it turned out exactly how it was supposed to, which does not always happen with bread-ish type things for me, when oftentimes they can turn out sort of dry even when I follow the recipe. Not here! This recipe is legit. And should I expect anything less from Joy the Baker? No. No I should not. I finally got her cookbook recently, and you should expect to see many more recipes from it in the future, I'm sure!

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven at 325F, making sure a rack is in the center. Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan for later.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt and set aside for a bit.
3. Either in your stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat cream cheese until soft and pliable. Add butter and sugar and beat until fluffy, approx 3 minutes. Add the vanilla and stir until blended, then beat in the eggs one at a time, beating at medium for 1 minute each.
4. With the mixer on low, slowly add in the flour mixture from earlier and beat until just incorporated. Stop your mixer at that point and fold together the batter with a spatula.
5. Spoon into your prepared pan from earlier and bake for 30 minutes. After that, rotate the cake, and if it's browning too quickly, move to an upper rack (I did not have this problem).
6. Bake for another 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. It should last for up to 4 days at room temperature, well wrapped.

(Recipe via Joy the Baker Cookbook)

In photos:

The dry ingredients get whisked together.

Beat that softened cream cheese until it's smooth.

Add in the butter and sugar. You'll likely need to scrape down the sides of your bowl quite a bit.

After adding in the eggs and vanilla.

And finally, after that flour mixture has been beaten and folded in.

Bake it up, and here's how it should look out of the oven!

Let it cool in the pan, then on a wire rack. Cut it up. Enjoy. Wrap in foil (or whatever you prefer!) to keep it fresh.

Moist and delicious! You see those extra moist bits in the middle? My favorite part.

Speculoos Cookie Butter Blondies

Have you ever heard of this thing called Cookie Butter? Otherwise known possibly as Speculoos or Biscoff spread? I think it's sort of new. Or maybe a resurgence of an old thing, made new again. Whatever the case may be in terms of its timeline, the fact is this: it's made from those Biscoff type cookies that they apparently serve on Delta airlines. Or used to serve? To be honest, I haven't been on a Delta flight in more than 10 years so I don't know!

The spread has a slight cinnamon-y taste to it. You can use it to spread on crackers or those thin ginger molasses cookies, or you can bake it into stuff much like you would peanut butter.

Can I tell you a secret? I thought I was going to love this spread. Something called Cookie Butter can only be a wonderful thing, right? Well... honesty time: I like peanut butter better! I think if this tasted like chocolate chip cookie dough, I would lose my mind, but as it is, it's only okay. You can totally disagree with me on this! Maybe I just don't have enough of a fond memory of those cookies, because to be honest, I don't remember them at all!

Oh well. It's still fun to bake new things. I will say that I think the original recipe asked you to bake these for too long. Mine came out a little dry. That's why I've got the 20-25 minute recommendation on the below recipe. Start low and go higher if you think it needs it, but since the dough is dark to begin with, you're not going to get a huge brown around the edges effect. Also? I hate hard edges on brownies and blondies and bars in general, so don't overbake these unless you like that.

Speculoos Cookie Butter Blondies
(via Two Peas and Their Pod)

1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup Biscoff Spread
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8 pan and set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and brown sugar, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from the heat, and stir in the Speculoos Spread, stir until creamy and combined. Set mixture aside to cool.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.

Add the egg to the Speculoos mixture and stir until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and stir to combine. Pour the mixture into the prepared dry ingredients, and stir until batter is smooth. Fold in white chocolate chips.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, spreading the batter evenly to the edges of the pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Remove blondies from oven and place them on a wire rack to cool. Once cooled, cut into squares and serve.

In photos:

 Melting brown sugar and butter.

Add the Speculoos cookie butter.

Whisk together your dry ingredients. Flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon.

Add the egg and the vanilla to the wet ingredients.

Add the wet ingredients into your prepared dry ones. Sticky!

 Fold in your white chocolate chips.

Press that into your prepared pan. Tip: use a rubber spatula!

Bake it at 350 for 20-25 minutes. Don't overbake.

Cut it up into squares!

Have yourself a little square. Or two. Or more. I won't judge.

Red Velvet Ice Cream

Sometimes, things just sound better than they actually turn out to be. For me, red velvet ice cream sounds pretty amazing, but in practice is only okay. But you know what, I'm pretty sure this is only me, because I seemed to forget that I don't actually like chocolate ice cream in any form.

If faced with a choice between chocolate and vanilla ice cream, I will invariably always choose vanilla. Always. Chocolate or strawberry ice cream? Strawberry, though let's be honest, I'd still prefer vanilla here too. Unless it's a milkshake, and then strawberry would be the winner. It's a confusing place in my brain, I guess, but there you have it. My taste buds are dessert specific, and they don't like chocolate ice creams!

That being said, if you are one of the untold millions who does like chocolate ice cream, then heck, you'll probably like this about 100 times more than I did. I also suspect I would've liked it even better if I had the patience and/or time to also make a batch of cream cheese-y ice cream and do some swirl action, making it taste more like a red velvet cupcake. Because yes, red velvet cupcakes are, in fact, my favorite of cupcakes. Wrap your head around it!

Red Velvet Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 6 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 Tablespoon red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cooking Directions

1. Bring cream to a simmer in a medium sauce pan. Meanwhile, thoroughly whisk together egg yolks and sugar. Pour some of the simmering cream into the egg yolk mixture while stirring (this is so the eggs don't start cooking!). Add this mixture to your cream still in the pan, making sure you're stirring all the while.
2. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat.
3. Stir in buttermilk, cocoa powder, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla extract. Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap so that the wrap is in contact with the top of your mixture; refrigerate until thoroughly chilled (around 4-8 hours).
4. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to its directions. Transfer your ice cream to a covered container and place in your freezer for at least two hours to get the best consistency.

Recipe via Yum Sugar

In photos:

Egg yolks and sugar. That's a lot of egg yolks, dude.

Add them into your cream and keep it on low heat while stirring every now and again.

Cook that for a while until it's thick enough to cover the back of your spoon without dripping off too easily. Custard-y!

After you've added in the buttermilk, chocolate, vinegar and food coloring, transfer to a bowl. I'm not entirely sure the vinegar is necessary in this recipe, but I went with it. Please note I also strained the stuff in the pot to go into the bowl because I was using powered buttermilk and it's just not great for ice cream recipes due to lots of chunks. So, real, actual buttermilk works better.

After you've let that stuff above sit for until it's completely cooled in the fridge (I let mine go overnight), put it in your ice cream maker and let it go to work. After you've got yourself some soft serve type ice cream, transfer it to a freezer-safe container with lid. It just fit into that container there. Barely.

Let it freeze for a while so it can turn into actual real ice cream, and voila! Red Velvet Ice Cream!