May 22, 2014 | 0 Comments

Diced! Dessert Challenge Round 2 – Peanut Butter Cup Bark

Diced! Dessert Challenge – Round 2

The Diced! Dessert Challenge continues…

Each participant in round 2 won their first round and is ready to battle for more.

I will post a pairing each week on Wednesday and Thursday and open the polls for voting. The polls will be open from Thursday until the following Wednesday (before the next pair posts). The winner of each matchup with the most votes will move on to the next round and the chef will produce another recipe for their new matchup. The overall winner will receive any prizes I can acquire. To date the winner will receive:

Dodo Book for Cooks
A beautiful Bamboo Cutting Board with a Butterfly Motif, graciously donated by competitor Lindy (The Kozy Nook)

This week’s pairing is:

Candy Bars (Maggie) vs. Jell-O and other Gelatin desserts (Jenee). Maggie beat out fruit type pies to advance and Jenee beat out Chocolate cake (which I had as the favorite – see what I know). Here’s Maggie’s second round….

OK. This is embarrassingly easy. 3 ingredients? Yes please. No baking? Yes please. Just one dirty bowl. Yes please. Chocolate, peanut butter, and nuts? Yes. Please.

I have to admit I was not super excited about getting Candy Bar as my category for this contest. How can you use candy bars as a main ingredient with it becoming another dessert category? There aren’t a ton of options, so variations on candy bars are among them.

I opted to keep it simple- make another candy bar.

Next I had to decide on the ingredients. My favorite candy bar (in the U.S.) is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I went to the Reese’s website and there were tons of recipes that use Reese’s products as an ingredient. There were even several recipes for bark. I chose the one below because it was primarily chocolate. I wanted the chocolate to be the star, with the peanut butter as a perfectly salty complement. The recipe called for peanuts, but I substituted toasted hazelnuts. I love hazelnuts. In Europe, they are the standard nut in candy bars. In fact, one is hard pressed to find almonds or peanuts in any candy bars there. Hazelnuts are always crisp, crunchy and have a unique mild flavor. They are the magic of Nutella. They make improve the perfection of chocolate.

I am pleased with how this bark looks- it is pretty, and was easy to cut into even pieces. And it tastes great. The hazelnuts and mini peanut butter cups are the perfect little bursts of flavor in the candy. I had to hide this from my husband. And I had to find a new hiding spot. He found my go-to one. Dang it.

Not sure how long I’ll be able to last with Candy Bars, but I will give it a valiant effort! Yay, Candy Bars!

Peanut Butter Cup Bark

What you need:

2 cups milk chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts, lightly toasted (I used Hazelnuts, but you can use peanuts, almonds, etc)

1 -1/3 cups Reese’s Minis Peanut Butter Cups (these come in bags, unwrapped wee morsels of deliciousness)

What you do:

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Place chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. After about a minute, stir, and continue heating in about 10 second intervals until chips are melted and the chocolate is smooth. Cool for about 2 minutes, then stir in the nuts and Reese’s mini cups.

Pour mixture on to waxed paper and spread to about ½” thickness. Tap cookie sheet on counter to even out. Keep tapping until it is your desired thickness.