(But not really.)

These Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars have something to please everyone – they’re sweet, salty, creamy and crunchy all at the same time. They’re not too peanut buttery. In fact, they may be a little heavy on the chocolate, but I’m OK with that. My husband who doesn’t like peanut butter cookies (I know, what is wrong with him?) had to admit these bars were pretty darn good. Even my beagle who doesn’t like food really liked the peanut butter base. (Please don’t feed your dog chocolate. Ever.)

Aside from the fact that these bars showcase the unbeatable (yes, I said unbeatable) combo of chocolate and peanut butter, they have other attractive qualities as well. They’re no-bake, meaning you don’t have to turn on your oven at all, a definite plus as the temperature outside rises. And if you want, you can make the whole recipe using just your microwave. Yay for fewer dirty pots and pans!

So what are you waiting for? I bet you have all of the ingredients in your pantry right now…

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bars

Makes 9 medium or 16 small bars

To make the pretzel crumbs, pulse pretzels in a food processor until the largest pieces are about pea-sized. I used almost half a bag of Snyder’s “Snaps” to get 1 1/2 cups of crumbs.

Peanut Butter Base Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups pretzel crumbs, fine
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Chocolate Ganache Ingredients

1 heaping cup semisweet chocolate chips, such as Ghirardelli 60% chocolate chips
1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions

Line 8×8 pan with foil. Spray with baking spray.

In a medium microwave-safe bowl, melt peanut butter and butter together in microwave (about 1 minute on HIGH). Stir in pretzel crumbs, confectioners’ sugar and salt. Spread evenly into prepared pan and refrigerate at least 10 minutes.

In a small saucepan or microwave-safe container, heat heavy cream to near boiling (1-2 minutes on HIGH, depending on your microwave). Pour over chocolate chips. Let sit for 2 minutes. Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth. (If needed, microwave on DEFROST 10 seconds at a time to finish melting.) Pour chocolate over chilled peanut butter base. Chill.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before cutting. Lift foil to remove from pan, then slice into bars with a pizza cutter. Store in refrigerator.

What’s a girl to do when she’s trapped in the house the week before Valentine’s Day with a carton of heavy cream threatening to expire and a few ounces of high quality chocolate?

Make truffles! Obviously.

I’ve never attempted to make my own truffles before, but I certainly have eaten my fair share of them. Unfortunately for my waistline, it turns out that truffle making is a ridiculously easy, albeit messy, affair. A few basic ingredients and some chilling time combine to make the most intensely chocolate and silky smooth truffles you can imagine. This time I made Bailey’s Irish Cream and coconut truffles with what I had in the house (see: snowed in), but I can’t wait to make these truffles again to try all sorts of new flavors!

Dark Chocolate Truffles

Makes about 24 truffles

The recipe below is for making both Bailey’s Irish Cream and coconut truffles at the same time. If you want to make only one flavor, double the appropriate liquor and add it to the whole batch, omitting the other liquor. The powdered sugar coating for the Bailey’s truffles doesn’t hold up in the fridge, so coat them just before serving. I used 60% Callebaut semi-sweet chocolate and 70% Sharffen Berger bittersweet chocolate.

Ingredients

3 oz semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon Bailey’s Irish Cream
1 tablespoon coconut rum
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup of shredded sweetened coconut, lightly chopped

Directions

Combine chopped chocolates in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a saucepan over medium heat, bring heavy cream, butter and sugar to a simmer, stirring to dissolve sugar. Pour hot cream mixture over chocolate. Stir gently until melted and smooth. Divide chocolate mixture evenly between two small bowls.

For Bailey’s Irish Cream Truffles: Stir 1 Tablespoon of Bailey’s Irish Cream into one small bowl.
For Coconut Truffles: Stir 1 Tablespoon of coconut rum into the other small bowl.

Label the bowls (so you’ll know which is which!), cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Once chilled, working with one bowl (flavor) at a time, scoop out about 1/2 teaspoon of the chocolate mixture and quickly roll into a ball with your hands. Repeat with remaining chocolate mixture.

For Bailey’s Irish Cream Truffles: Roll truffle balls in powdered sugar to coat.
For Coconut Truffles: Roll truffle balls in chopped coconut to coat.

Store truffles in an air tight container in the refrigerator for up to one week (as if they’ll last that long).

I can’t remember ever celebrating Christmas without these cookies. If you’ve ever had Thin Mints, you know exactly what they taste like. The surprising part is how easy they are to make. The holidays are always a chaotic mess of shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, cleaning, entertaining… whew, I’m exhausted just typing that sentence.

So why not make things a little easier on yourself?

Forget about softening butter and shuffling endless batches of cookies in and out of the oven. If you have two hands, three ingredients and about an hour, you can make these seriously addictive cookies that will have your relatives inviting themselves to your house for the holidays year after year!

“Thin Mint” Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Makes 70-80 cookies

I know at first crackers dipped in chocolate sounds gross, but I assure you they taste just like the real deal Thin Mints. I’ve always used dark chocolate candy melts to make these, but I’m pretty sure any chocolate will work – the candy melts just save you the step of having to chop the chocolate before melting it.

Ingredients

1lb dark chocolate (chopped if using block chocolate)
2 sleeves Ritz crackers (about 80 crackers)
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Directions

Cover a flat surface (counter-top or cookie sheet) with wax paper.

Place the chocolate in a medium, heat-proof bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan with about an inch water and heat the water to a simmer (not boil) slowly melting the chocolate. Stir frequently. Remove bowl from the heat when all but a few lumps of chocolate are melted. Continue stirring away from heat until melted smooth.

Stir in peppermint extract. (Taste for flavor. If needed, add more extract.)

Working quickly, dip crackers one at a time in the chocolate, coating both sides. Remove the cracker from the chocolate with a fork and tap gently on the side of the bowl to shake off any excess. Set on wax paper to harden. Repeat with remaining crackers until out of chocolate.

TIPS:

• Be careful not to overheat the chocolate. Melting it slowly and removing it from the heat with a few small lumps of chocolate left is the best way to avoid this.
• NEVER add water to chocolate. It will only cause the chocolate to seize. If you feel your chocolate is too thick, use something like Paramount Crystals for thinning.
• On that note, make sure you use oil-based extract for the flavoring to avoid ruining the chocolate!
• If the chocolate starts to harden while you’re working, warm it over the same pot of simmering water for a minute or two to loosen it up again.
• Using a fork to dip the cookies works well enough, but if you make them more than once, it’s worth it to get this Candy Dipping Set from Wilton. I think the two-tined fork is perfect for making these cookies.
• The cookies will harden at room temperature in an hour or two. If you need to speed the process along, place them on a wax-paper lined baking sheet and put them in the freezer until hard.
• I prefer leaving my cookies plain to make them look as much like Thin Mints as possible, but you can top them with all sorts of fun things! In the photo above I used these tiny Christmas Charm Sugar Toppers. In the past I’ve used crushed candy canes. You can also use sprinkles, colored sugar, cookie crumbs, or anything else you can think of. Add toppers before the cookies harden to make sure they stick.

I know it’s something most people outgrow by the time they’re, oh, about 12. But not me. One of my small joys in life is wandering down the candy aisle, eyes scanning the shelves for new and exciting candy. You won’t be surprised to find out I prefer chocolate candy over the fruity stuff.

This month has turned out to be an exciting month for candy! THREE new candies to try, all within a few weeks. It’s like I hit the new candy jackpot.

If you twisted my arm and forced me to choose a favorite candy, I’d probably pick Reese’s peanut butter cups. There is little better in life than the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, in my opinion. But I’m partial to dark chocolate, so over the last few years I’ve lamented the fact that they don’t make dark chocolate Reese’s. Sure, the regular ones are great, but wouldn’t dark chocolate Reese’s been ever better? And then, like a wish quietly granted, a few weeks ago they just appeared in the candy isle. No fanfare, no commercials, not even a mention on the Reese’s website. Obviously I grabbed the first bag I saw, ran home and stuffed one in my mouth. And then my life was complete. I was a little afraid they wouldn’t be as awesome as I imagined them to be, but oh, they are! Maybe even better. If you like dark chocolate and you like Reese’s peanut butter cups, you owe it to yourself to go find a bag of the Dark Reese’s – like right now.

Shorty after I accidentally discovered the Dark Reese’s, I heard rumors of two more new candies. You should know that I have a total weakness for special edition M&Ms. I don’t know what it is, the new flavor combinations or the cute little graphics they print on them, but that company totally has my number. To this day, my favorite M&Ms are/were special editions: dark chocolate M&Ms and the holiday-only mint M&Ms. So when I heard there were two new special edition M&M flavors floating around, I set off on a quest to find them ASAP.

First I found the Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms, a special edition flavor in honor of the new Transformers movie. I have no idea what Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms have to do with Transformers, I just knew I had to try them. The cashier where I bought them raved on and on about how they tasted like peanut butter and jelly, so I had high hopes for these M&Ms. Too bad they didn’t live up to them. They’re not awful, really, but they’re not good either. I found myself thinking if they were just the peanut butter part, they’d be great. But the “strawberried” part? Ew. These M&Ms have a gross, chemically fake strawberry smell and taste that is an almost immediate turnoff. Something about it reminds me of the dentist. A friend said it reminded her of cough syrup. Of the five people that tried them, only one didn’t think they were kinda gross, and he claimed he couldn’t taste any of the strawberry flavoring. I’d save your money for the other special edition M&Ms instead of wasting it on these.

The other special edition M&Ms sent me on a wild goose chase through two different towns in an effort to find them because they sounded that good. Coconut M&Ms. Peanut butter and chocolate may be my favorite flavor combination, but coconut and chocolate is probably a close second. I heard from various friends how good they were, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Every store I looked in would tell me, “Well, we had them…” Just as I was beginning to think Coconut M&Ms were a figment of my imagination, a friend showed up with some and generously let me try them. I have to say they were worth the wild goose chase! While they don’t have any real coconut in them (just coconut flavoring) they taste fantastic. Very similar to a Mounds, but in M&Ms form. The coconut flavor isn’t overwhelming either. At first you just taste the chocolate but then, as the chocolate melts, you get this wave of coconut. And then you stuff six more in your mouth. Did I mention they have cute little palm trees printed on them too? Needless to say, if you like coconut you should definitely try Coconut M&Ms!

If you love candy like me, you might also enjoy the Candy Blog, which features new candy and reviews way before I ever find them in stores.

(I should note that I have not been paid or compensated in any manner for reviewing these candies. I just love candy! But if anyone from Mars or Hershey’s is reading this, you should know I can be bought with chocolate. I’m just saying.)