PB & J Blondies - SKIPPY Peanut Butter and Jam Blondies #AD

On Saturday (2nd April 2022) it is officially National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day. Peanut butter and jelly (or jam) has been one of my favourite sandwich fillings for a very long time. I don't remember when or where I first enjoyed it, but it's a combination that I love. 

Jelly is generally made from fruit juices, whilst jam is made from real fruit, but here in the UK jelly is a completely different food, and I would not recommend using it in a pb & j sandwich!

For National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day 2022 I've decided to make some PB & J Blondies. if you're not familiar with blondies, they are similar, in the way that they're made, to brownies. They're relatively simple to make and, just like brownies, the key is to not over bake them, so they keep a soft and chewy texture.

I've used my go to blondie recipe, which can be adapted with different flavours and ingredients, and swirled creamy SKIPPY Peanut Butter and Bonne Maman jam through the batter, and scattered a few salted peanuts on the top.

SKIPPY® Peanut Butter: Extra Smooth and Extra Crunchy varieties are currently available in major supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Costco, Ocado and the International section of Tesco.

Take a look at my TikTok to see how I made these delicious blondies, and scroll down to see the full recipe.

@thecrazykitchen #ad SKIPPY peanut butter pb & j Blondies #ad #skippy #peanutbutter #blondies #baking #cakes #nationalpbjday #recipe #food ♬ For cooking and work videos. Marimba is an impressive song - Junya Ota

SKIPPY Peanut Butter & Jam [Jelly] Blondies

250g unsalted butter
350g caster Sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp baking powder

300g plain flour

2 eggs

100g SKIPPY Extra Smooth Creamy Peanut Butter

75g Strawberry Jam / Conserve / Jelly

30g salted peanuts

• Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C / gas mark 3
• In a saucepan, melt the butter and bring it briefly to the boil and stir in the sugar
• Add the vanilla
• Remove from the heat
• Mix the flour & baking powder together
• Add the flour & baking powder to the saucepan, and mix well
• Beat the eggs
• Add the beaten eggs to the saucepan, and beat until smooth
• Pour into a baking tray lined with non stick baking paper, and smooth out
• Warm the SKIPPY Peanut Butter in the microwave for a few seconds to soften
• Drizzle the SKIPPY Peanut Butter over the batter, and swirl
• Spoon jam onto the batter, and swirl
• Sprinkle with salted peanuts
• Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, but check after 25 minutes. The tops of the blondies should be golden brown but the centre should still be soft.
• Be careful not to overcook - blondies need to retain their fudginess - it will firm up as it cools down
• Cool in the tray and cut into squares when cold

BLONDIES ARE LIKE A GIANT CHEWY COOKIE

Recipe commissioned by SKIPPY Peanut Butter

More delicious SKIPPY Peanut Butter recipes :

 

SPAM®️ Quiche Lorraine {& a GIVEAWAY} #AD

This coming week is an important event in the foodie calendar as it's the UK's official SPAM®️ Appreciation Week 2021 (8th - 14th March). I know that many readers of this blog love having the chance of winning a SPAM®️ Sizzle Pack, and this year I also have a special anniversary t-shirt to give away along with the pack. (scroll down to find out how you can win)

SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham are celebrating 80 years in the UK this year, and to celebrate this very important birthday, along with the giveaway, I have created a very important dish. During the 70's and 80's, no birthday party or special occasion was complete without a quiche of some description on the buffet table, and with that in mind I've given the classic Quiche Lorraine a Sizzle Pork And Mmm twist, and replaced the bacon with SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham - pure genius I hear you say!

A quiche is pretty straightforward to make, and you can add just about anything you like to the filling. The classic Quiche Lorraine is generally just bacon, cheese, eggs and cream. I usually make my own pastry, but if you're not a confident pastry maker, or don't have much time, then a ready made pastry crust can be a life saver, and is available in just about every supermarket - make sure you buy the savoury version and not the sweet one though!

Yon't need to pre-cook the SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham, especially if you're short on time, but I think it's nicer when the edges have a little crispiness to them, but it's personal preference really, and who doesn't love listening to the sizzle in the pan!

SPAM®️ Quiche Lorraine

1 tbsp oil

1 onion, finely chopped

200g can of SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham

1 pastry case

100g Gruyere cheese, grated

300ml double cream

3 eggs

• Preheat the oven to 170°c
• Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onions
• Fry until softened, and set aside
• Dice the SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham to approx 0.5cm and add to the pan
• Fry until browned on all sides
• Add the onions and all but one large spoonful of SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham to the base of the pastry case
• Sprinkle the grated Gruyere cheese over the top
• Whisk the cream and eggs together with a fork & pour into the pastry case - if you have too much mixture you can make mini crustless quiches in a muffin tin
• Sprinkle the remaining diced SPAM®️ Chopped Pork and Ham onto the top
• Bake in the preheated oven for approx 25 minutes, until golden brown
• Serve warm or cold, with salad and new potatoes, or baked beans & chips - whatever floats your boat!

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WIN a SIZZLE PACK and t-shirt(worth over £100)

To win your very own sizzle pack and t-shirt, including a SPAM®️ slicer, apron & spatula, you need to complete the Rafflecopter form by completing the Rafflecopter form below.

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More SPAMTASTIC meals and recipe ideas can be found on the SPAM®️ UK website

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Cadbury Creme Egg Chocolate Brownies

Easter is just around the corner, which means that chocolate will be coming out of our ears pretty soon. Why wait until Easter to eat Creme Eggs though, especially as they've been in the shops since Christmas, unless of course you've given up chocolate for lent, in which case you'll have to wait a couple more weeks!

Chocolate brownies are a very popular dessert in this household, especially served warm with vanilla ice cream. For these Cadbury Creme Egg brownies I used the same recipe as my Jammie Dodger Brownies but increased the quantity slightly as I wanted the brownies to be thick enough to surround the Creme Egg half.

Crispy on the top and rich and gooey inside. So indulgent and hard to resist.

If you want neat squares then wait until fully cooled before slicing, however if you can't wait then just grab a spoon and dive in whilst they're still warm!

Cadbury Creme Egg Chocolate Brownies - makes 12

250g butter

240g dark chocolate

325g caster sugar

4 medium eggs

80g cocoa powder

70g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

6 Cadbury Creme eggs, halved

• Add the butter & chocolate to a saucepan over a low heat and stir until melted
• Set aside until cooled slightly
• Whisk the sugar & eggs together until pale and creamy and doubled in size
• Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder
• Whisk the melted chocolate & butter into the eggs and sugar
• Fold in the flour, cocoa powder & baking powder until fully combined
• Pour mixture into a baking tin lined with baking paper (I used 11 x 7 inch pan)
• Bake in a preheated 160 degree C oven for 20 minutes
• Add the Creme Egg halves before baking for an additional 20 minutes - you want the top to be crispy and the centre to be a little gooey

Classic Thin & Crispy Margarita Pizza

This week has been a bit of a hectic one, with two trips to the physio (one for me and one for the accident prone eldest child) , a trip to the opticians to try and convince them that my new glasses are no good despite the number of adjustments to the arms they made, as I still couldn't see my computer screen clearly - a sure sign that I'm getting old!

Then I spent far too many hours working in front of my computer wearing my old scratched glasses with hazy sections in the middle of each lens whilst I wait for my new (hopefully improved) specs.

Fast forward to the weekend and I finally got around to making pizza for this week's Bake Off challenge. Some of those on the show turned out to be a bit of a dogs dinner, and I'm not sure where they went wrong, but it makes for good tv, and makes be feel better about my own rustic efforts.

Home made pizza is so much better than store bought, in my opinion, but sometimes needs must, and the kids don't seem to have the same palate as me, and don't mind where it comes from, although if you mention Domino's their grumpy little faces soon light up.

I'm not a fan of stuffed crusts or deep pan, as there's just way too much bread for my liking. Thin and crispy authentic pizza bases are definitely the way to go, and simple toppings are usually all that's needed. I used Paul Hollywood's pizza base recipe from his 'Bread' book, which is a nice and simple basic recipe. It makes enough dough for 3 decent sized single person pizzas, and it's easy to roll out or shape into a thin base.

I happen to have a pizza stone, which I've had for years, and it's perfect for cooking crispy bases, as you heat it up in the oven first, and it starts to cook the base before it even gets into the oven, which seems to make it easier to remove too. I also happened to have an unopened box of semolina in the cupboard with an expiry date of sometime during 2015, but it was still perfectly fine, and gave the base that authentic finish.

For the topping I stuck to the classic margarita style, with passata, mozzarella and fresh basil. I would've preferred more basil on top but Asda let me down that morning with my online shop and delivered a manky basil plant with barely any decent leaves on, which I only noticed as I went to pluck a handful of leaves once the pizza was cooked. The pizza still tasted great though, despite the lack of greenery, and it was thin and crispy, just the way I like it.

one of the few decent basil leaves (insert all the eye rolls)

If you're following a low carb diet & a bread base isn't really your thing then you could try making the base from a protein powder, such as pea protein. See more here for the best pea protein powders.

Portuguese Custard Tarts (cheats version)

Last week's Bake Off brought us savoury pies, pastel de nata and hand raised pies. I considered making savoury pies or a hand raised pie (like these hand raised pork pies I made during Bake Off 4 years ago), but time ran away with me at the end of last week, and I was out on Saturday. Instead I opted for my own version of the Portuguese custard tart, which was easier and less time consuming than the recipe the bakers used during the technical challenge. I've neither eaten or made these before, despite holidaying in Portugal many times. I've never really been a fan of egg custard tarts, as I've always found them to be a bit, well, eggy, and I guess I thought these would be much the same.

Instead of making rough puff pastry, or using shop bought puff pastry, I made my own cream cheese pastry, which is my pastry of choice now when I make pies and pasties as it's so easy to work with, and it tastes so good. It's not quite as flaky as puff, but a lot lighter than shortcrust, so it worked really well in these tarts, resulting in a light & crisp casing for the non eggy custard.

I cheated a little when it came to the custard filling, mainly because I wanted to see if a cheap 25p tin of custard would actually work as a filling, and believe me it did work, and these dozen tarts didn't last more than a couple of hours! The custard was soft, and not at all rubbery or eggy, and by using shallow bun tin (the kind we all used to bake fairy cakes before American muffins and fancy cupcakes became a thing) there was just the right amount of custard for the quantity of pastry. If I was making them again I would probably leave them in the oven for a few more minutes or roll the pastry a little thinner.

If you wanted to make these tarts even more quickly, and with even less effort you could use ready rolled puff pastry - one sheet of puff pastry would probably make 18 or 24 small tarts like mine, or 12 if you wanted to use larger muffin pan moulds. Baking at home doesn't have to be tricky or time consuming, and with a few little 'cheats' you can make your home baked goodies look as though you've been slaving away for hours on them!

A little bit of a swirl visible on the underside of the tarts - I wonder if it would've been enough for Mr H & Prue!

Pepperoni Pizza Bread Sticks

Before I made my cardamom, orange & cinnamon teacakes a few weeks ago I hadn't made any bread for a while, but that's the great thing about Bake Off, as it makes you rediscover the baking that you'd forgotten about, as well as trying out new bakes, such as Stroopwafels.

Since bread week I've baked bread of some sort each week, including a cheese, garlic and herb stuffed loaf to accompany home made soup, which is great in this cold weather, and now these bread sticks filled with cheesy pizza flavours. They are so easy to make, especially if you have a bread maker to make the dough, or use ready made and rolled pizza dough (£1 in Asda), as they only need a few additional ingredients, a little time to rest, and then only 10 minutes to bake.

Serve them as a tv snack dipped in ketchup or chilli sauce, or alongside soup, salad or pasta for a main meal. Personally I think they're best served warm, with the cheese oozing out, but they would also be a great addition to the kids lunchboxes, or as snack for car journeys.

I don't often buy cheesestrings, but they work really well in these, as the cheese doesn't seep out like it would if cheddar was used, plus they're convenient as they don't need cutting or grating!

Toffee, Apple & Pecan Steamed Pudding

After being very quick off the mark making my Caramel Stroopwafels following last week's Bake Off, I've slipped back into 'just making it in the nick of time' for pudding week. Once I'd clapped eyes on those mouthwatering steamed puddings I knew exactly what I was going to make at the weekend.

We have a small apple tree in the garden, and it's always produced a bumper crop of eating apples. We have no idea what variety they are but they're a really crisp and tart red skinned apple that are great for eating. They're not so great in a pie as they hold their shape a little too well, unlike a Bramley, but are really good in cinnamon apple cakes, toffee apple cinnamon buns or apple custard tarts. Saturday morning I picked a couple of apples from the tree & added them to these extremely simple to make steamed pudding. My family don't usually have the patience for a proper steamed pudding, so I often end up 'steaming' them in the microwave instead (like my 'mum's emergency chocolate cake'), but this time I gave myself plenty of time for steaming, and left it simmering away for an hour and a half. The pudding smelt amazing when I turned it out, and the apples had dispersed themselves nicely throughout the cake, and softened nicely, but not turned to mush. The toffee sauce was also really simple to make, and was adapted slightly from the caramel that I used in my Stroopwafels.

This recipe was a total win, and the family loved it, although they weren't all keen on having pecans on the top so I ate most of those!

Cardamom, Orange & Cinnamon Teacakes

Following Bake Off last week I decided to go for the signature bake and make teacakes. I don't recall ever making teacakes before, although I have made hot cross buns, which are very similar, as well as many other kinds of sweet buns.

I haven't made bread for a while but I did have some in date yeast and bread flour in the cupboard, so all was well, or so I thought.

As I'm always looking for ways to cut corners and save time whilst cooking and baking, I opted to make the dough in my bread maker before adding the dried fruit and spices after the first prove.

Whether it was the yeast or the flour, but one of them wasn't working in my favour, and there was barely a rise on the dough, but as I wasn't really paying much attention when I took it out of the bread maker, I carried on regardless.  It was only after I'd added the fruit and spices, rolled the dough into balls, flattened them out and left them to prove for an hour or so that I realised that I wasn't get a rise out of my buns that day, and perhaps the yeast was dead.

I baked the buns anyway, and despite being a little on the small side, they were perfectly acceptable, albeit a little dense and more on the English muffin side that the teacake, but everyone loved them anyway.

Once I'd replenished my yeast and flour supply I tried again, and this time the teacakes rose perfectly well, and again everyone loved them.

I love cardamom (especially in gin) but I took a risk not knowing if everyone else in the family would feel the same way. I need not have worried though as they loved them, even my 8 year old flavour connoisseur.

There's something so comforting about a toasted teacake in the afternoon, especially now the weather has turned so autumnal.