Holiday treats: thin mints and chocolate peanut butter cups

December 21, 2012 by Margaux 2 Comments

Continuing with the idea that I’m making veg treats for family instead of giving store-bought gifts, I decided to rally and make the second bunch of treats that I’ll be adding to the christmas containers.

Lesson learnt: chocolate is bladdy messy, and the product usually tastes better than it seems.

My first experiment (after finally tracking down peppermint essence at the local Bakers’ Bin!) was thin mints. My favourite choc, pre-vegan, was peppermint crisp, because seriously, it’s tasty like a meadow self-actualizing on acid.

I ganked the recipe from Averie Cooks, because it seemed to be the simplest of treats. Hah. Let’s just say melting chocolate takes a few turns to master, all because I didn’t have this mystical shortening that her recipe called for. A family lady promised me some shortening from Dubai in the future, but until then its existence will remain mysterious. Anyhow, once one adds peppermint essence to the melted chocolate (without shortening, mind), it clumps and ‘burns’ and generally makes sadness. I *finally* figured out that a few squirts of water and lots of hand-mixing does the trick (after wasting 125g worth of dark choc *sulk*). After figuring out the obvious, it was really chop chop to melt the choc, mix in the peppermint essence & water, dunk the crackers and plonk it in the fridge. Naturally I had to test the chocolate and lick my fingers clean…and the spoon…but it got a bit much and my kidneys are still trying to recover.

The peppermint and chocolate completely masks the fact that one’s actually dealing with salty crackers, and gives a nice element of surprise. What a win!

Then I made some chocolate peanut butter cups. Of course, I have miniaturized farmer’s hands, so mine didn’t come out quite as delicately as Averie’s, but really, after melting gram after gram of chocolate enough becomes enough.

The chocolate really does only take moments in the freezer before you can take it out and continue assembling the business. I realized after a while that I should probably have used smaller crackers, which would have been where the sturdier form of the pb cup comes in, but it’s surprisingly difficult to get crackers that don’t give warnings about possible contamination. So.

As I poured the chocolate on, therefore, I also lifted the cracker to make sure the chocolate spread down into the crevices below and could bind the bottom layer of chocolate with the top.

Anyhow! It got a contented look of approval from the man-thing, as did the mint thins, but really he is no judge considering the main ingredient is chocolate. I couldn’t even get a second photograph of the middle, so quickly did he snatch it away again to gobble down!

At least my Christmas containers are nearly complete! Just need to make the vanilla-rooibos fig newtons and I can wash my hands of this project!