Mini Peanut Butter Cup Buttermilk Doughnuts with Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache

Wow what a mouthful! This was one of the first bakes I made in our new home! and you know what I was most excited about...aside from eating them, was photographing them against this mint green wall! 

Isn't it just dreamy!

It's like our landlord knew mint green was my fave colour! It's one of the things I love most about our house...along with our dishwasher! It's been a long 2 years without one! 

I whipped up these mini peanut butter cup doughnuts for father's day because Byron is all about the peanut butter so I knew he'd be all over these! I also got a mini doughnut pan for Christmas that had yet to make its debut so it seemed like a good combo! 

While I was photographing the doughnuts and Byron was patiently waiting to try them, I snapped these pics of him and Ella Bella in the garden.  He is such a great daddy to our baby girl and we're so lucky to have him in our lives!

Since it was my first time baking doughnuts I don't have much to compare them to! but the peanut butter chocolate ganache was the perfect pairing for these soft little buttermilk babies and the chopped peanut butter cups strewn throughout the mix were a definite highlight! Topped with generous chunks of peanut butter cup and they really are a peanut butter lovers dream! 

Stay tuned for all kinds of doughnut flavour varieties coming soon!

Mini Peanut Butter Cup Buttermilk Doughnuts with Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache:

Makes 18 mini's

Adapted slightly from Picky Palate

3/4 cup plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 cup caster sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp instant vanilla pudding mix

6 mini reese's peanut butter cups

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 cup chocolate chips

3 tbsp extra thick double cream (just use regular double cream for a runnier smoother ganache)

2 tbsp peanut butter

6 mini reese's peanut butter cups

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Grease doughnut pan - if using a silicone pan you can skip this step.

Place flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, egg, vanilla and pudding mix into a large bowl.  Add smashed peanut butter cups and pour in the buttermilk.  Using a whisk, stir to combine.

Scoop batter into doughnut pan, I had to make mine in two batches.  Bake for 15-18 minutes until cooked through.  Remove and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Place chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, and melt in 30 second intervals.  Add cream to chocolate, stirring until smooth.  Stir in the peanut butter, put back in the microwave for 15 more seconds.   If the ganache needs thinning, put back in the microwave for another 15 seconds.  

Chop up the mini peanut butter cups into quarters and garnish the ganache with them.  

Eat and enjoy! 

Halloween Peanut Butter Cup Pumpkin Rocky Road!

Rocky Road is one of my favourite things to make! It doesn't require you to turn on your mixer and wake a sleeping baby, or try and track down where the heck your whisk attachment has gone to (seriously whisk...where are you? my guess is lost in the move) and it can certainly be whipped up in one of the baby's shorter naps...and if you're lucky enough to live in a hot country it's good for those days when you can't bear to turn the oven on!  It is also SO versatile! It was one of the very first things I ever baked, using a recipe from one of those little random chocolate recipe books you get as a stocking filler! Go ahead and laugh at my embarrassing blog post back in 2009 where it made its debut. Since then I have jazzed it up using all of my favourite treats - Snickers and Oreo, Reese's peanut butter, crazy amounts of coconut and festive peppermint ones plus seasonal mini egg easter ones too!

So I thought it was about time that my peanut butter rocky road got made over into a Halloween edition! because I found a bag of reese's peanut butter pumpkins in Tesco and I knew I had to use them in my kitchen! Sadly when I opened them up they didn't look like pumpkins at all! just an oval sized peanut butter cup! so I pimped them jack-o-lantern style with a little bit of orange coloured white chocolate, green sanding sugar and chocolate sprinkles and mini chocolate chips!

I'm not exactly an artist, but hopefully there's no denying now that those are pumpkins!

I even added in peanut butter m&m's too to truly amp up the peanut butter goodness involved! and with some chopped peanut butter cups making up the bulk of the add ins you just can't go wrong! Throw some marshmallows, chopped nice and chunky, and rice krispies into the mix and you've got one delicious Halloween treat!

Not a trick in sight!

Peanut Butter Cup Pumpkin Rocky Road:

Serves 9

Adapted from Cupcake Crazy Gem

400g milk chocolate

100g dark chocolate

2 tsp vegetable oil

35g rice krispies

150g marshmallows

75g peanut butter m&m's

240g peanut butter cups (approx. 16)

9 peanut butter pumpkins

60g white chocolate, I used milky bar

1/2 tsp orange food colouring

green sanding sugar

18 chocolate sprinkles

9 mini chocolate chips

Line an 8x8 dish with parchment paper.
Melt your milk and dark chocolate in a large bowl together over a pan of boiling water.  Once melted, remove from the heat and stir in the vegetable oil.  Leave to cool.

Chop your marshmallows in half, and your peanut butter cups into quarters.  Measure out your rice krispies and peanut butter m&m's.  Check that your chocolate is completely cool - you should leave it for at least 10 minutes (if it's still warm, when you add in your chocolates they will melt so the cooling process is important!)  Once it's cool, stir in all the mix ins.  Spread evenly into your baking pan.  I like to reserve back a bit of the chocolate in the bottom of the mixing bowl to use right at the end to smooth out the surface of the rocky road.

Melt your white chocolate in a small bowl in the microwave in 20 second bursts - watch it because white chocolate burns easily.  I used milky bar because the lower quality white chocolate melts far easier - don't go buying any fancy stuff for this.  Once melted stir in the orange food colouring.  Put into a piping bag and snip a tiny tip off the end.

Take 9 pumpkins, and pipe a thin edge all the way round with the orange chocolate.  Do zig zag lines in the middle of each pumpkin and at the end go back with your piping bag tip to help smooth out the chocolate until the pumpkin surface is completely covered.  Sprinkle green sanding sugar on the stem, and use 2 chocolate sprinkles for the eyes.  Place a mini chocolate chip for the nose.

Once all your pumpkins are complete, place them on top of the rocky road, pushing down slightly so they set into the chocolate.

Refrigerate for 2 hours until set, or overnight.

Eat and enjoy!

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Overload Ganache Cookie Cake

 You know how sometimes you take really bad pictures that you don't ever think should see the light of day! Well, that's what happened with this bake! I made this for Byron's birthday last April whilst we were still living in Vancouver...he had been away for a week on a forestry trip in the middle of nowhere up North and my sister and mom had arrived from England 3 days before he got back.  We had been busy touring Seattle and Vancouver Island and had been surviving on very little sleep, it was a hectic time but I knew no birthday could pass without sufficient delicious celebrations! hence this cake! but also hence why the pictures were a bit of an afterthought, it was super dark once I finished making it and we were all just too desperate to eat it for me to faff around!

 

 So I wasn't intending to blog it, but I came across these pictures today and remembered how decadently delicious it was, and how many peanut butter lovers I know there are out there who need to know about this cake!

So please forgive the pictures...and let's talk about the cake!

 

 It is essentially a giant cookie, baked in a cake pan...but not just any cookie, a cookie filled to the brim with not only chocolate chips but also peanut butter chips!

Once the cookie has baked, you cover it in some deliciously creamy marshmallow fluff, which has been heated slightly so it's easier to spread out.  You then throw mini marshmallows, micro chocolate chips and mini peanut butter cups on top (I may or may not have waited for the fluff to cool so my toppings all melted into the fluff which doesn't make for the prettiest pictures but it was rather delicious still!) 

At this point, in the original recipe you would whip up a batch of peanut butter frosting and cover the sides and top of the cake...only I had run out of icing sugar - I know, what kind of baker runs out of icing sugar! 

So since I was still in my ganache cures everything phase...I whipped up a batch of peanut butter chocolate ganache and just piped around the top of the cake with that, adorning each little swirl of ganache with either a peanut butter cup or a micro marshmallow.  

Every ounce of this cake is decadent, and not for the faint hearted! but if you like a lot of sugar, and a lot of peanut butter, and chocolate then this cake is surely for you! My husband LOVED it!

and I fell in love with peanut butter chocolate ganache - who knew it would be so tasty!

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Overload Ganache Cookie Cake:

Serves 12-14

Adapted from Sprinkle Bakes

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookie:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup caster sugar

2/3 cup soft light brown sugar, packed

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Grease a 10 inch cake pan with butter and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in the eggs and vanilla extract.  Beat again until well mixed.

In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda.  Pour flour mixture into the butter and mixture and mix until a thick batter forms and the flour is just incorporated.  Add both types of chips and mix on the lowest speed until combined.  

Pour batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly with a spatula so the cookie is flat on top.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Remove from oven and let cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  Turn cake out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Marshmallow Topping:

1 cup marshmallow fluff

3 tbsp micro mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup mini marshmallows

15 mini peanut butter cups, halved

Spray a small bowl with cooking spray and place the 1 cup marshmallow fluff in the bowl.  Heat gently in the microwave for 20-30 seconds, or until just loosened and pour into the centre of the cookie.  Spread evenly over the top.

Wait for it to cool, or if you're impatient like me throw all the toppings on top.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Ganache:

5 oz. dark chocolate

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup double cream, heated

Chop up the dark chocolate into small pieces and put into a bowl.  Add the peanut butter to the bowl.

Heat up the cream gently in a saucepan and once hot, pour into the bowl of chocolate and peanut butter.  Leave it for 2 minutes to melt the chocolate, and then stir like crazy with a spoon until all the chocolate has melted and the peanut butter has been incorporated into the ganache.

Put it into a piping bag, and pipe swirls of ganache around the outside of the cake.

Top each alternate swirl with a chopped mini peanut butter cup, or a micro mini marshmallow.

Eat and enjoy!