In the US, or at least in my little pocket of Indiana, Cadbury chocolate only comes out once per year – at Easter.  While I spent the vast majority of my life in the US, I didn’t even know Cadbury made anything else but Creme Eggs.  The realization that Cadbury makes other chocolates came during a class trip to Europe, where I saw Cadbury-everything.  Wow!

Now living in Australia, it is obvious that Cadbury is one of the most popular – if not the most popular – brand of chocolate.  Cadbury chocolate comes in all different varieties, from the good old Dairy Milk milk chocolate block, to Turkish Delight, to Mousse chocolate blocks.

Recently, Cadbury Australia offered to send me products from their new range of baking chocolate to try at home, of which I was super excited about.  It didn’t take long to choose some recipes to make with the chocolate; I took one look at the milk chocolate cheesecake on the front of one of the packages and knew I’d be making it!  Another recipe I chose came from Cadbury Kitchen, where each recipe has been tested to ensure your success at home.

There is nothing like a big box of chocolate to make you happy!  In the box was each product from Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range.  I think the packaging looks fantastic – I just love that dark purple!  They also included a beautiful large tea-towel, which is pictured underneath the chocolate, above.

First, I made the milk chocolate cheesecake, which is pictured on the front of the big milk chocolate baking block.  If you’re a little timid about baking cheesecakes, you can relax with this one – it doesn’t need to be baked!  The list of ingredients is easy and simple, and the preparation is a breeze.  I did have one relatively minor issue with the recipe, however.  The base of the cheesecake is a chocolate biscuit/cookie-crumb base (I used Arnott’s Ripple biscuits).  The recipe says to grease the springform pan, and I did that.  I briefly considered placing some baking paper on the bottom though in case the base would stick, but in the end, I just followed the recipe.  When it came time to slice the cake, I found that the base stuck solidly to the pan.  I nearly had to transfer the slice of cheesecake to the plate, then pick the biscuit base off the bottom of the pan with a fork and place it on the plate next to the cheesecake!  Next time, I will definitely use that baking paper, and I recommend that you do as well.

So how did the no-bake cheesecake taste?  Amazing!  It was a hot day that I made the cake, and I thought it was perfect to cool off with for dessert.  The texture was smooth and velvety, almost mousse-like.  It’s a very impressive cake that would work for dinner parties as well, and because it’s so quick and easy it’s no problem to make at the last minute (but mind the 2-hour setting time in the refrigerator).

Inspired by the picture on the front of the packaging, I also made some (rather large) chocolate curls to decorate the slices.

Luckily, I was able to get most of the biscuit base on this slice for the photo!

You can find the recipe for this Milk Chocolate Cheesecake at Cadbury Kitchen, as well as on the package of the milk chocolate baking block.

The second recipe I chose was for peanut butter fudge.  Only 3 ingredients to this recipe!  It probably can’t be considered real “fudge” because of these ingredients, but it does have a smooth, creamy texture that definitely resembles fudge.  I’m actually very excited about this recipe and can’t wait to share it with you!

You’ll need two products from Cadbury Australia’s baking chocolate range:

And one other ingredient that is probably in your pantry right now – peanut butter (unless you’re allergic, and if so, why not try another type of nut butter?).  Okay, listen to this.  All you need to do to make this fudge, is melt the melts separately in the microwave (or double-boiler, if you prefer), mix peanut butter into both the dark and white melts, pour them into the pan, swirl with a knife and let it set in the refrigerator.  A very short time later, you’ll have something that looks like this:

Well, if you use the right size pan, you will probably have a thicker fudge, but how pretty is that?  I don’t have the size of pan used in the recipe, so I used the closest I had, which was longer and made the fudge very skinny!

The swirling is easy.  I just spooned alternate chocolates into the pan, so I ended up with a sort-of checkerboard pattern.  For the next layer, I just reversed the checkerboard pattern.  When all the chocolate was used up, I banged the pan on the countertop to level it, then took a butter knife and gently swirled the chocolates together.  You only need to swirl once – don’t keep swirling, or you’ll just end up mixing the chocolates together and it won’t look so pretty.

This fudge is delicious, and tastes even better on the next day.  And here’s the best part – if you love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, then hold onto your hats, because the taste of this fudge is very similar to Reese’s.  It is so delicious!

It keeps very well in the refrigerator.  I made this fudge 4 days ago and I still have some left, which tastes as good as the day I made it.  I’d say it’ll keep for at least a week in the refrigerator.

You can find the recipe for Easy Peanut Butter Fudge at Cadbury Kitchen.

Overall, the new baking chocolate range is fabulous and I can’t wait to use the rest of the chocolate.  I love how smooth the chocolate is when it’s melted and it’s got that lovely glossy look to it.  Regarding the chocolate melts, I have never liked the taste of any particular brand’s melts on their own, but I will honestly say that Cadbury’s melts taste better than any previous melts I have tasted.  What is great about the baking chocolate is that it’s all real, delicious chocolate – even the white chocolate contains at least 23% cocoa butter.  If the white chocolate you use does not contain cocoa butter, then it is not real white chocolate (this is one of my biggest pet peeves!).

So there you have it, a glowing, positive review on Cadbury Australia’s new baking chocolate range!  I would, without a doubt, recommend the products to you to try yourself.  And if you can’t decide on what to make with it, check out Cadbury Kitchen and I’m sure you’ll find something delicious there (this chocolate mud cake with baked pears is what I’m making next!)!

I actually made two different types of cupcakes this week, believe it or not.  You haven’t seen any photographic evidence on Flickr or Twitter because I considered them both failures.  The first one was a lavender cupcake with honey Swiss meringue buttercream.  Sounds nice, right?  Well, the cake, while it tasted alright, was way too dense.  The buttercream, while it also had a nice taste, had a strange texture to it, almost sort of… elastic?  Yeah, it was a little weird.

My second batch of cupcakes were vanilla on vanilla, a classic combination using real vanilla beans.  But the cakes started splitting on top (I *might* be a bit particular about how the tops of my cupcakes look) while baking and turned too brown too quickly.  They also tasted slightly eggy.  And the buttercream?  It was way too sweet.

After both of those failures, I had no butter left.  And yes, also, my son came home from preschool with conjunctivitis (A.K.A. “pink eye”).  And my daughter acquired a stomach bug.  This winter has been horrible for viruses; I don’t think the kids have been not sick for any length of time for the past few months.  It’s so terribly annoying!

But just hours before I realized that both of my kids would be coming home sick, I was searching the internet to find a recipe that I could bake that also did not have butter.  I didn’t have my hopes up.  Someone suggested hummingbird cake to me, but I didn’t have any carrots either.

Eventually, I started singling out cookies.  And I came across this one – peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.  They looked easy and delicious.  But having a read over the comments and reviews of the recipe, I knew I had to change the original if I wanted to end up with something edible.

And end up with something edible I definitely did.  These were extremely indulgent and out-of-this-world delicious.

I don’t even need to continue this post with words; I could just show you more pictures of these incredible cookies and that would be enough.

But I do want to tell you what I did different with the recipe.  It is a butterless and flourless recipe.  But, after reading over the comments on the recipe page, so many people had problems with it and said it was sickly to eat.  Too much peanut butter, too much sugar.  So following the advice of others, I reduced the peanut butter (I used smooth and not chunky) and brown sugar down from 1 cup to 3/4 cup.  Others added 1/2 cup of self-raising flour, but I didn’t have any, so I added 1/2 cup of plain flour + 1 teaspoon of baking powder.  Finally, I reduce the amount of chocolate down from 1 cup to about 3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon or so.  Oh, and I also used chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips.

The dough was stiff and difficult to mix by hand.  The chunks were difficult to stir in and I ended up chucking the spoon and using my hands to incorporate the chunks.  I used about a tablespoon of dough per cookie, and flatten them slightly before baking.

Again differing from the original recipe, I reduced the oven temperature from 200C to 180C and my cookies were done in 9-10 minutes.

I’ll note as well that the recipe I am including below is the exact recipe that I, myself, used.

As with most cookies, I want to remind you that it is very important not to overbake these.  You’ll only need a slightly golden outside to keep them soft and chewy.   Straight from the oven, they are very soft, so let them cool on the tray for a bit before removing them.

There is no crunch to these cookies, they are just all over soft and chewy (and remain so on the next day).  And they stick to the roof of your mouth, just like peanut butter does.  You will need a glass of milk with these, no doubt about it.

I never expected to end up with such a delicious cookie without any butter.  I am highly impressed and proud to say that these are now one of my most favorite ever cookies!  If you love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, I guarantee you will love these as well!

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I’ve made them before and was surprised at how easy they were to make.  They didn’t match the exact taste of a Reese’s, but they were delicious, and they were homemade and that made them extra special.

It has been a few years since I made chocolate peanut butter cups, so I took the opportunity to do so last week.  I had been sick all week (thanks a lot to my daughter, who also got sick from a “bug” going around her kindergarten class) and I had wanted to make these little beauties all week but was too sick.  Finally, on Friday, I was feeling better and got to work first thing in the morning (which, for me, means about 1PM!).

Don’t they look so special?  Let me tell you about how special these little cups really are.  That’s not just average chocolate you see there; that chocolate is Lindt’s A Touch of Sea Salt dark chocolate bar.  This is my most favorite chocolate bar.  Ever.    There is also my own touch of sea salt in the creamy peanut butter filling.

And, these are mini chocolate peanut butter cups, which makes them especially cute!

I have a secret to get the perfect smooth top on your cups, as well.  I’ve already had questions about this, so I will share my tip with you guys too.  Most of the peanut butter cups I have seen on blogs have a dollop on top, or spreading marks from a knife or spoon.  This is fine, there’s nothing wrong with that as the taste will still be awesome, but I prefer smooth tops these days and I know exactly how to get them.

When you first start making the cups, you will be melting chocolate and peanut butter together.  You’ll spread the melted mixture into paper liners, then you’ll refrigerate them to set them.  In the meantime, you’ll be making the peanut butter filling.  When it is done, you’ll take out the chocolate cups from the ‘fridge, fill the cups with peanut butter, then spread the remaining melted chocolate on top.  Then you’ll be refrigerating them again to set.

Okay, so in between the time you first spread the chocolate into the liners, refrigerate them, make the filling, etc., the melted  chocolate will be cooling and hardening slightly.  It’ll still be liquid by the time you spread it on the top, sure it will.  But you won’t be able to get a smooth top unless you re-melt the chocolate.

What you’ll need to do is, after filling the cups with the peanut butter, place the cups in the refrigerator for a minute or two, then re-melt your chocolate.  Just until it’s warm and runny again.  Don’t make it hot though.  Just a minute or two of constant stirring over the stove on low heat until it’s warm and runny, that’s all.  Take it off the heat, then immediately spoon it on top of the cups.  After this, don’t touch the melted chocolate on top at all.  Instead, pick up the pan and tilt it gently this way and that until the melted chocolate covers the peanut butter entirely.  Repeat with the remaining cups.  You now have smooth chocolate tops!  And, of course, immediately refrigerate them until set.

I wouldn’t recommend pouring the chocolate on all of the cups, and then tilting the pan because the chocolate will start to harden due to the chilled cups and you might not to be able to get a smooth, even coverage on the first cups that you filled.

With all that said though, who really cares what the tops look like?  No matter if they’re a messy rustic pile of melted chocolate with a bit of peanut butter in the middle, they will taste spectacular!

The recipe for these is below, but they were based on my previous experience with the recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel.  I roughly halved that recipe and got exactly 10 mini-cupcake sized cups.

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Oh, how delicious these were!  And I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they tasted nice with coffee.  If you want to make these too, please do so immediately!  They are so quick to make and you’ll be rewarded with the delicious taste of gooey peanut butter and gooey chocolate in no time.

My only change to the original recipe was to divide everything in half and place the batter into an 8×8″ square pan.  I recommend eating these by the second day after you make them, because they seemed to dry out and harden after the second day, even though I had them covered tightly.  It shouldn’t be a problem to eat them quickly, however!

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I’ve been wanting to try a no-bake chocolate peanut butter bar recipe  for a while and I finally got inspired to do when I saw this recipe at Our Best Bites (and they’ll soon be releasing a cookbook, by the way!).  The recipe looked so easy and so quick to prepare that I couldn’t pass it up.

I did a couple of things differently, which I’ll make a note of in case it may help others with this recipe:

First of all, I decided to halve the recipe, so I used an 8×8-inch square metal pan, and divided all the ingredient quantities in half.

Second, my main obstacle was that Australia has no graham crackers!  I substituted the graham cracker crumbs with a relatively similar-tasting biscuit made by Arnott’s – the Nice biscuit.  They can be crumbled into fine crumbs in a food processor or by bashing and rolling the biscuits in a Ziploc bag with a trusty rolling pin.

Third, the original recipe used shortening in the chocolate layer, but I don’t like shortening (and there is no shortening in Australia); the original recipe said that peanut butter could be used instead of shortening, which would keep the chocolate layer softer; I thought the peanut butter idea was a good one, but that Nutella would be even better, so I used Nutella.  Also, you may be interested to know that I used Lindt 50% chocolate.

These bars tasted almost exactly like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.  I’m tempted to use the peanut butter layer recipe to make another batch of chocolate peanut butter cups!

Do make sure that you don’t allow the bars to fully set in the refrigerator before cutting them up into individual squares – it’s best to do the cutting while the chocolate is firm, but not runny or hard.  The chocolate might crack a bit as you cut it if you leave it to fully set, which would result in a not-so-neat presentation.  My main tip in eating these bars is, if you’re storing them in the refrigerator, to let them sit at room temperature for about 15-20 minutes before enjoying them, they taste much better this way.  They’re still fine straight from the ‘fridge, but for some reason the peanut butter taste isn’t so strong.  So let them sit out of the ‘fridge for a bit and you’ll experience nearly the same awesome satisfaction you get as you bite into a Reese’s Cup!

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This past month I have discovered a new version of the peanut butter cookie on three different food blogs.  First, I found it at Drool Factor, who found it at Almost Bourdain (my favorite food blog).  Then a little later, I found it at Iron Chef Shellie, which made me realize I’ve had enough of looking at this recipe, I just had to finally make it.

So what is this new version of the peanut butter cookie?  What first attracted me was the sprinkling of sea salt on top of the cookie.  Then, came the realization that this was not your average peanut butter cookie – this cookie had perfectly formed round edges and it was flat on top with no fork tine criss-cross.  This cookie dough requires a teensy bit of kneading, after which it is rolled into a log, refrigerated until firm, cut into slices and then baked.  How interesting!

I had one problem with the recipe though – the dough is supposed to be made using a food processor.  I don’t have a food processor.  Drool Factor, however, made these cookies by using an electric mixer, so I followed the directions on this post.  Everything went well doing it this way instead of in a food processor.

The only tip I can give you is to be absolutely sure that the log of dough has been refrigerated until it is very, very firm.  For me, it took longer than 3 hours (as recommended in the recipe).  If you try to slice the cookies from the log and the dough is not firm, the slices will all have flat bottoms and your cookies will not be round.  This might have happened to me… because someone was just so impatient!

As I already mentioned, I’m not really keen on crunchy peanuts in my peanut butter cookies, but I didn’t have a problem with them in these cookies.  If I made these again (and I probably will), I might use smooth peanut butter and add no extra peanuts at all.  I think it would still be very nice.  The texture of the cookies reminded me of shortbread, and without nuts in it, it would be even more like eating peanut butter shortbread!

The sea salt flakes on top were a delicious topping.  I used Murray River pink sea salt flakes.  I was a little concerned as to how the salt would taste if I were to eat these cookies with a cup of coffee or tea, but I’m happy to report that they couldn’t have tasted more perfect together.

The recipe seems a bit long, but don’t be intimidated – these are actually really easy!

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In case this hasn’t gotten your attention yet, let me explain what exactly this is.  In the picture above you are seeing a layer of dark chocolate which is drizzled with milk chocolate and peanut butter-white chocolate.  Peanut butter-white chocolate?  No, you can’t buy it, but you can make it at home.  But what makes this chocolate and peanut butter slice so extra peanut buttery?  It’s in the base.

See?  It’s a baked mixture of some melted peanut butter and butter, some flour, brown sugar, an egg, and something a little different – desiccated coconut.  The texture of the base is shortbread-like, sort of crumbly.  I warn you, it’s quite thick and heavy, so if you’re looking for something light you better keep searching!  But it is oh so delicious!

The recipe comes from Valli Little and can be found online here, and in the book Sweet which is a publication from delicious. magazine.  I didn’t realize the recipe was online when I bought said book, and the only reason – I repeat, the only reason – I bought this book was because of this particular recipe.

You can whip these slices up pretty quickly, aside from the setting time in the refrigerator required for the chocolate.  You don’t need an electric mixer or any other fancy equipment.  As long as you’re able to melt a few ingredients and stir, you can make this!

Before I pass along the recipe though, I must issue a disclaimer.  You absolutely need a glass of milk with these slices, and I hold no responsibility for what might happen if this warning is ignored!  ;)

One last thing, you can call these “bars” instead of “slices” if you like.  I think “slices” is just an Australian term for “bars”.

I wasn’t going to post this photo because it’s not as bright as the others and my 1-year-old smudged the chocolate while it was setting in the refrigerator (towards the bottom, left of center).  But I thought you might want to see what the drizzles looked like before the whole thing was cut up!

Chocolate And Peanut Butter Slice
Adapted from Sweet by Valli Little
Makes 12 slices, or bars

Ingredients
125g unsalted butter
1 cup (280g) smooth peanut butter, plus 2 tbs extra to drizzle
11/2 cups (225g) plain flour, sifted
3/4 firmly packed cup (165g) brown sugar
1 cup (90g) desiccated coconut
1 egg, beaten
250g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
50g white chocolate, chopped
50g milk chocolate, chopped

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 20 x 30cm lamington pan with baking paper, leaving 4cm overhanging on all sides.

Combine the butter and peanut butter in a saucepan over low heat, stirring, for 1-2 minutes until melted. Place the flour in a large bowl with the sugar, coconut, egg and butter mixture and stir to combine. Press the mixture into the base of the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake for 10 minutes until golden (I had to bake for 10 minutes longer). Set aside to cool for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, place the dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water (don’t let the bowl touch the water) until the chocolate has melted. Stir until smooth, then pour over the base and chill for 30 minutes until set.

Melt the white and milk chocolates in separate bowls as above. Whisk the extra 2 tbs peanut butter into the white chocolate until smooth. Drizzle slice with melted milk chocolate, followed by the white chocolate mixture. Chill briefly until set. Using the paper, lift the slice out of the pan and cut into 12 squares.

Joy The Baker recently combined my fondness of peanut butter and no-bake pies by posting a recipe for a no-bake peanut butter tart on her blog and I was so excited by it that I was the third in line to comment on the post (there are currently 122 comments on that post, proclaiming that this tart looks absolutely delicious!).  Shortly after reading the post, I was out buying ingredients.

Living in Australia, I was immediately presented with one major obstacle – the recipe requires graham crackers to make the crust, and graham crackers don’t exist in Australia.  I realized I had to either substitute them with something else, or make my own.  I took the easy way out and substituted a full 250g package of Arnott’s Nice biscuits, which is a cookie with sugar sprinkled on top.  They produce a much finer crumb than graham crackers, but they work just as well.

As you can see, I didn’t use mixed nuts to sprinkle on the tart as Joy did hers; I only used peanuts.  The crunch of the nuts was a nice contrast to the tart, which is so creamy.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I was the only one in my family to like this tart.  My daughter hates peanut butter, and even though my son and husband both like peanut butter, they don’t like cream cheese and my husband said it tasted too much like cream cheese.  It’s been 4 days since I made this and there is still a little more than a quarter left – I’m not sure if it’s even still safe to eat!

Years and years ago, I used to make a no-bake peanut butter chocolate pie for family get-togethers in the summer, but I have since lost the recipe.  The peanut butter filling in this tart tastes very similar to the peanut butter filling I made for that pie, and I’m tempted to make this again, but omit the whipped topping entirely and spread on a layer of chocolate ganache to see how similar it might taste.  What do you think?

That’s enough from me about this no-bake peanut butter tart – head on over to Joy The Baker to get the recipe!

Peanut butter cupcakes with white chocolate frosting and a sprinkling of white chocolate shavings!  I have to say that the peanut butter flavor really overpowers the white chocolate frosting, even though the frosting really does taste like white chocolate.  It still tastes pretty darn good though!

A note about the frosting – make it as soon as you’re ready to eat it.  It starts out nice and white, but after it sits for a few hours, it starts to turn yellowish.

And finally, keep a glass of cold milk nearby because just like straight peanut butter, these cupcakes stick to the roof of your mouth!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Adapted from I Heart Cuppycakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter, room temp
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk

Method
Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tin cupcs with paper cupcake liners

Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl and set aside

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar until smoothly blended and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. Mix in egg. Add vanilla and beat for 1 minute or until batter smooth.

On low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 additions and the milk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and mixing until the flour is incorporated and the batter looks smooth.

Fill each liner with a generous 1/4 cup of batter, to about 1/3 inch below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and are lightly browned and a toothpic inserted in the center comes out clean, about 22 minutes. There will be cracks on the top. Cool cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pan on wire rack.

White Chocolate Buttercream
Adapted from BBC Good Food
Makes enough for 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
100g white chocolate
140g unsalted butter
140g icing sugar

Method
Melt the chocolate over a double boiler, stirring often. Leave to cool. Beat the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until creamy. Beat in the chocolate. Use immediately.

Back to the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie cake.  This is a cross between a gigantic peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and a cake, so it’s sort of difficult to classify it as either a cookie or a cake, in my opinion.  It has the texture and appearance of a cookie, not the soft, tender crumb of a cake.  The only way in which it resembles a cake is that it’s about 10 inches in diameter.

You can call it whatever you like, but chances are when you taste it, the only thing you’re going to be calling it is absolutely delicious.

I baked mine in a tart pan with a removable base because I don’t have a 10-inch round cake pan.  It made it super easy to remove the cookie cake when it was cool (er, well, it was almost cool when I removed it, I just couldn’t wait any longer!).

This has got to be one of my most favorite foods that I have baked.  My only regret is that I over-baked it just by a couple of minutes (it was slightly dry, not gooey-looking like the pictures at Almost Bourdain).  My oven is hard to figure out.  It’s basically brand new (just about 7 months old) and it is fan-forced.  It doesn’t really brown anything, so it’s sometimes hard to figure out when something is done.

No matter, this cookie cake was just the most scrumptious thing ever.

And I will definitely be making this one again soon.

The original recipe that inspired Ellie from Almost Bourdain to make this cookie cake called for semisweet chocolate chips to be used, but Ellie used milk chocolate chips.  I decided to use milk chocolate chips too.  I normally don’t like milk chocolate that much, but coupled with the peanut butter I thought it would taste great.  I made sure to choose a good quality milk chocolate (I chose Cadbury, which isn’t top of the line, of course, but I do like Cadbury milk chocolate) to give me a better chance of liking it!  Even though I loved the cookie cake with the milk chocolate chips, I’ll try semisweet, or even dark, chocolate chips next time I make this.

This was a big hit with my 2-year-old son, who even sneaked into the cupboard and stole some when I wasn’t looking!

Recipe Source
Ellie from Almost Bourdain

And on a separate note, just a quick reminder that coming up on July 1 the first ever Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge ingredient will be announced. For more information on this brand new monthly cupcake challenge that I have started, read this page.