Chocolate Peanut Bites

Hubby and I had some friends over on Saturday to watch football games. We needed a dessert, so I had to find something that would go well with the beefy cheese dip, chicken tenders, and soft pretzels we were having for dinner. So I turned to my folder of saved recipes, and came across this one for Chocolate Peanut Bites from the Rachael Ray Magazine.I figured these would be good for a small sweet treat (and who doesn't like peanut butter and chocolate?)

These turned out to be perfect-- not too sweet, and it's a pick-your-own-size dessert. Just in the mood for a sweet treat? Take one. In the mood for a heartier dessert? Take five. 

It starts out easily enough, just melt three tablespoons of butter, 1 cup of creamy peanut butter, and a 12-ounce bag of chocolate chips in a pot on the stove top. (Heat over low heat). Then you transfer the mixture to a 9X9 inch pan and let it rest in the fridge.

The butter...

 

The peanut butter...

And the chocolate!

Mix all that up with a spoon...

Keep stirring...

And then switch to a whisk to get everything nice and smooth!

Then transfer the mixture to the pan.

The recipe reads to only leave the mixture in the fridge for 45 minutes before shaping. However, I made it Friday night, so I let it chill overnight in the ice box.

Before I started shaping the bites in the morning, I got the "crust" ready. All you do is finely chop 1 1/2 cups of unsalted, roasted peanuts and put them on the plate. Then it was time to get rolling!

Hooray for the mini food processor!

Since I let the mixture chill overnight, it was a little hard to shape it the next morning.  But, after a few minutes, the chocolate was more malleable. Through trial and error (not all of the bites were round) I found the best way to get the chocolate into a somewhat pretty shape was to scrape a spoon across the top of the mixture so you ended up with a "curl" of chocolate. Then, you can gently press the curl onto itself to form a cylinder-like shape. Once the chocolate is shaped, then you lightly press it into the peanut mixture to coat. This is a kind of messy process, so I wasn't able to take any photos.

Place them in an airtight container and chill until you are ready to serve them.


It is a little time consuming to form the bites-- it took me about 30 minutes to get them all coated. All in all, it's a pretty simple dish to make. Here's a link to the recipe for Rachael Ray's Chocolate Peanut Bites.