An army!

You guys happened to pick one of my favorite dessert flavors for the poll last week. It’s a rare day that what I want to win actually wins. I got lucky this time around!

Besides using something with almond, I also wanted to make something super-easy to make.

In fact, these guys are so easy to make you don’t even have to turn on your oven!

This was my first attempt at making truffles and while they didn’t turn out perfectly shaped and I would probably need a few professional lessons before getting hired by See’s candy, I was completely happy with the result.

Almond Truffles

Yield: Makes about 40.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
4 ounces almonds, about a cup, ground
1/4 cup cocoa powder, for coating

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Food Processor

Directions:

1) Cream together butter and cream cheese using a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is fluffy and smooth.

2) Toast coconut in a dry skillet over medium-low heat until it's a light brown color, about 4-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn the coconut.

3) Process almonds in a food processor until they are a rough meal.

4) With cream cheese/butter mixture, add in extracts and powdered sugar. Then stir in coconut and almond meal.

5) Make teaspoon sized balls of the dough and roll them into a tight ball with your hands. Toss them in cocoa powder until completely coated.

6) Chill for storage or serve immediately. These are best served at room temperature.

Adapted from a Food52 recipe.

Truffle Basics

I had never made truffles before and the first thing that shocked me was how little material actually goes into the balls. To make about 40 truffles, I only used 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 ounces of cream cheese.

Sure, there are a lot of add-ins and stuff, but the actual binder for the truffles is just a very tiny amount of these two ingredients.

The basics.

Add the butter and cream cheese to a mixing bowl and beat it until it is a light and smooth texture. I used my stand mixer for this, but you could just as easily use a hand mixer.

After a few minutes of beating you should be all set.

This actually makes a lot of truffles.

After this, mix in your extracts (vanilla and almond) and also the powdered sugar.

The Add-ins

Now for the fun stuff. This is where all the flavor and texture comes from for these truffles.

No need to peel.

For the almonds, just measure out 4 ounces (about a cup) and quickly process them in a mini-food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, I would just put my almonds in a plastic bag and crush them with a mallet or something.

Your goal is to get a really nice almond meal.

Easy breazy.

Besides the almonds, there’s also coconut in this recipe. I’m not always a huge coconut fan, but I really liked it in this recipe.

The key to coconut is to make sure you toast it lightly before using it. I just toasted mine in a dry skillet for a few minutes over medium-low heat. Be sure to keep an eye on the coconut and stir it frequently.

It can go from toasted to burned in about 30 seconds.

This is what you’re shooting for!

Don't burn it!

Add in the almond meal and coconut to the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Stir this all together and your truffle mixture is done!

Try to not eat this with a spoon.

Making the Truffles

Keep in mind that truffles are supposed to be bite-sized treats. This stuff is pretty rich and nobody wants a candy bar sized truffle.

I literally used a teaspoon to measure out my truffles. To make one, scoop out a heaping teaspoon of the mixture and then lightly roll it into a ball using your hands.

See how small it is?

Small is good.

Toss the ball into a bowl of cocoa powder and shake it around to coat it completely.

You can do more than one at a time.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do 5 or 6 at a time and then just toss them all with the cocoa powder at the same time.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to pop out about 40 of these bite-sized goodies.

As I finished them, I just set them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The paper just makes it a bit easier to clean up. There’s really no danger of the truffles sticking to anything.

Not bad for my first truffle.

While these are supposed to be one bite treats, I bit one in half so you can see the story.

Pretty delicious stuff. The cocoa powder is sharp and intense and then then the whole thing just melts in your mouth.

Chomp!

Store these in the fridge, but they are best served at room temperature. So, if you can, take them out of the fridge 10 minutes before eating them.

I find this next to impossible because when I open my fridge, there they are, and I just pop one in my mouth.

So, that serving method works too.

These are really unique and they look and taste way harder than they actually are. Give them a shot if you’re a truffle fan, an almond fan, or a fan of good stuff that requires very little work!

Smart food!

Betsy heads off to Colorado today to take The Bar Exam and she asked me to make some energy bars that she could take into the test with her. As an aside, the people that administer the bar appear to be the most paranoid people in the world. A few of the things you can’t bring into the bar…

• Neckties
• Garments with hoods, pockets, or linings
• Digital watches
• Costume Jewelry

What’s funny about this list is that I’m sure the items on there are on there for a reason. Some genius student probably tried to cheat somehow by using costume jewelry and got caught. Given the ridiculous amount of information that you have to know for this test, I’m not even sure how you would cheat on it though.

I guess rather than actually study there might be people out there that will use the two months leading up to the bar to figure out how to print 1000 pages of material on the back of a Dr. Pepper label.

Anyway, so I decided to make these no-bake energy bars that are packed with peanut butter, nuts, coconut, and oats. For people that aren’t cheating, you’ll need some good brain food!

Bar Bars

Yield: 8x8 dish of bars.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes + chill time

Ingredients:

1 Cup pecans, chopped
1 Cup almonds, slivered or chopped
2/3 Cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1 1/4 Cups rolled oats
1 1/2 Cups unsweetened crispy brown rice cereal (you could use rice krispies in a pinch)
1 Cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
1 Cup peanut butter
1 1/2 Cups water
1/2 Cup sugar
2 Tablespoons finely ground coffee
1 Teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Roughly chop the pecans and almonds and toast them, along with the coconut, in a 350 degree oven for about 8 minutes. Toss the mixture a few times throughout just to make sure they aren't burning. The coconut should be a light tan color when it's done.

2) Once all of that is toasted, mix it with the oats, cereal, and chocolate if you're using it.

3) Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, mix the peanut butter, water, coffee, vanilla, sugar, and salt and stir over low heat until the sugar is melted and everything is combined, about 3 minutes.

4) Let the peanut butter mixture cool for a second and then pour it over the dry stuff. Stir everything together.

5) Pour the bar mix into a lightly greased (I used a non-stick spray) or lightly buttered 9x9 baking dish. You could use a 9x13 pan if you want thinner bars. Press them down to an even layer and let them chill in the fridge for a few hours.

6) Cut them up and serve!

Adapted from a 101 Cookbooks recipe.

Making the Bars

These are no-bake bars, so there’s not a huge amount of prep to them honestly. Even though they are no-bake, you still want to toast the nuts and coconut though. It’ll add a lot of flavor to the final product.

Just roughly chop the pecans and almonds and spread them and the coconut out on a baking sheet.

Ready to roast!

Bake this sheet of deliciousness at 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes. Stir it up once or twice during that time just to make sure the coconut isn’t burning. You’re looking for a lightly tan color on the coconut. When your coconut is done, everything is done.

This was my finished sheet.

After 10 minutes and a few mixes.

The Crispy Rice Cereal

The recipe I was sort of going off of, although I changed a lot of stuff, called for crispy brown rice cereal. I’d never even heard of this.

But I found some! At least I think this is the right stuff. After inspecting it closely, I’m fairly certain that you could use Rice Krispies, but these are somewhat healthier for you. The texture seemed to be about the same to me though.

Any rice cereal will do the trick.

Once your nuts and coconut are done toasting, mix the oats, cereal, chocolate, and toasted things in a large bowl!

All the dry stuff!

The Wet Stuff

The only thing that Betsy requested in these energy bars was peanut butter so I made sure to include a lot of that. I’ve been on a homemade peanut butter kick lately so I just whipped up a batch. Obviously, you can use anything you can buy in the store also.

I'm an overachiever.

In a small saucepan, mix your peanut butter, water, coffee, vanilla, salt, and sugar and bring it to a simmer. It turns into a kind of peanut, coffee, vanilla, syrup situation that is pretty out of this world.

This will only need to simmer for a minute or two. You just want to make sure everything is well-combined and the sugar is melted.

This will smell awesome.

Then pour the peanut butter mixture over the dry ingredients and stir everything together really well. Lightly grease a 9×9 baking pan (I used non-stick spray) and pour all the bar mixture into the pan and press it down to an even layer. They should be pretty thick. If you wanted them thinner, you could use a 9×13 inch pan.

In the pan!

If you don’t mind room temperature bars, these are good to go now! They’ll be best if you let them chill for a few hours in the fridge. The nice thing about these is that they don’t need to be refrigerated really. There’s not anything perishable in them so they can sit out for a few days without a problem. They might get a bit gooey, but gooey can be delicious.

But the most important thing about these energy bars is that they’re packed with lots of stuff that’ll help your brain recover from hard multiple choice questions and essays!

For this version, I threw in shredded coconut, walnuts, and currants. All of these worked wonderfully in banana bread.

Ok. This was good.

In my opinion, one of the most important things about banana bread (besides having really ripe bananas) is to make sure you address texture along with taste. The bananas have good flavor, but your bread will be kind of mushy if you don’t add in some nice textures. The currants in this recipe give some chewiness to the bread and the walnuts give a bit of crunch.

Honestly, it’s a pretty fantastic loaf.

Currant and Walnut Banana Bread

Yield: 1 loaf.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

8 Tablespoons butter, softened, plus a bit extra for the pan
1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
1 Teaspoon salt
1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
3/4 Cups sugar
2 eggs
3 very ripe bananas, all mashed up
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 Cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1/3 Cup shredded coconuts
1/3 Cup currants (all of these last three ingredients can be easily substituted with any dried fruit or nuts)

Directions:

1) Get all the dry ingredients mixed up (flours, salt, baking powder, sugar).

2) Mush up the bananas.

3) Get the other dry ingredients ready (coconut, currants, and walnuts).

4) In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together using a hand mixer, food processor, or even a whisk.

5) After a few minutes, the butter/sugar mixture should be nice and light. Then beat in one egg at a time and all the banana mush.

6) Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and combine them well.

7) Stir in the goodies.

8) Pour this batter into a standard 9 X 5 inch loaf pan that has been coated with butter and lightly floured.

9) Bake for 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees. A toothpick inserted in the very center should come out pretty clean.

10) Once it’s done baking, cool for about 5 minutes, then remove it from the pan and let it cool completely on a wire rack. It needs to at least cool for 30 minutes. Slice it up!

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

For the visually inclined:

The whole wheat flour is seriously key.

Mixing the dry ingredients

This is a really easy batter to pull together actually, but the first step is getting all your dry ingredients mixed up. I think the whole wheat flour is a great addition to this recipe. If gives the final product an almost nutty flavor. It’s good stuff.

The dry stuff.

Then mush up your bananas. You don’t need to make them smooth. In fact, I like a bit of texture, but just kind of mush them together.

The riper the better!

Then I like to get my other dry ingredients ready. For me that meant my coconut, currants, and walnuts. If you so choose, take artsy photos of these things.

Artsy photo alert!

Making the wet batter

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together using a hand mixer, food processor, or even a whisk. After a few minutes, the butter/sugar mixture should be nice and light. Then beat in one egg at a time and all your banana mush.

The wet stuff.

Finishing the batter

Mix your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and combine them well. They should come together really easily. I like to do 1/2 of my dry ingredients, then combine that, then the final 1/2 of the dry ingredients.

Once it is all combined you can stir in your goodies.

Flavor and texture is important here.

Pour this batter into a standard 9 X 5 inch loaf pan that has been coated with butter and lightly floured. The batter should be pretty loose and should smooth out evenly.

Don't forget to butter and flour this bad boy.

Baking the loaf

Bake this guy for 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees. My loaf definitely needed all 60 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the very center should come out pretty clean.

Once it’s done baking, the loaf needs to cool for about 5 minutes, then you can remove it from the pan and let it cool completely on a wire rack. It needs to at least cool for 30 minutes.

Oh hell yea.

Then you can slice it up! It’s a really moist loaf which means that it stores really well. If you wrap this in foil it will keep for about 5 days without a problem.

Stores nicely.

If you are a beginner baker, I’m telling you to try this recipe. It has a ton of leeway to it. The bananas give a lot of moisture so it’s really hard to overcook and the batter is really easy to pull together.

If you’re looking for a solid, easy baking recipe, this is about as good as it gets.

Give it a shot!

Update: A very astute reader brought it to my attention that I say walnuts, but their are pecans in the photos! I have nothing to say on this except… oops. :) You could use either!