Foodie Friday -- Reindeer Poop

So I promised you some reindeer poop, didn't I? Well, here you go:

Oh, darn, it's not available any more, guess I'll have to give you a recipe.

Reindeer poop is easy to make, well, actually it's the filling for peanut butter cups. For some reason, when I molded them as peanut butter cups everyone compared them to the gold standard--Reese's Peanut Butter cups. And let's just say they didn't make the grade.

But when I formed them into balls and dipped them into chocolate . . . instant raves!

Humans are so funny.

Reindeer Poop

18 oz. jar of peanut butter (I use creamy Jif)
1 (1/4 pound) stick butter, melted
1 pound powdered sugar

Stir peanut butter and melted butter together. Add powdered sugar in increments and mix by hand until blended--actually, you have to put your back into it and KNEAD the dough. Roll into small balls (1/2-inch diameter or hazelnut size) and dip into chocolate. Set on waxed paper to dry. Trim excess chocolate.

That's it, my friends.  Easy-peasy. Buy some cheap Christmas mugs, make a batch of reindeer poop and polar bear poop, place some of each into mug, wrap with Christmas decorated cello paper, and voila, instant Christmas gift! Well, not instant, but easy.

Hints & Suggestions:

• When mixing the peanut butter and butter together, it gets sloppy. But then again, when you add the powdered sugar, it can become a Winter Wonderland in your kitchen. Jus' sayin'. . . It's not like I've ever done that, right?
• Though I'm a HUGE fan of creamy Jif, it does have a higher than average sugar content than other brands. The problem comes if you need to stiffen the dough a little bit--it makes it very, very sweet. Next time, I make these, I'm going to decrease the butter by a tablespoon or so and see what happens.
• If you have to refrigerate the dough prior to dipping it in chocolate, it can bust through the bottom layer of the chocolate when it warms up. When this happened to me, I added another step of dipping the bottom in chocolate and letting it dry, chocolate facing up, before completing the dipping process. They weren't really round when I finished, but it worked.
• I use Merken's chocolate to dip any of my candy, but you can buy numerous types of candy coat or almond bark at various stores to do the same thing.
• The peanut butter mixture will eventually infuse the peanut butter flavor into your dipping chocolate. You don't want to reuse this chocolate for anything else. Try to use the minimum amount of chocolate you need to dip.
• If you have extra chocolate, it does freeze well. Just warm the chocolate left in your dipping bowl about 15-30 seconds, scrape out of bowl onto a piece of waxed paper. Yes, it looks like a big poo. Let it solidify. Break into pieces and store in small freezer bag until next year. It freezes quite well.

That's all I can think of for now!

Later, Peeps!