Homemade Butterfingers

{source}

Ok, so about a month ago I found this recipe online for homemade Butterfingers.  Supposedly candy corn, peanut better, and compound chocolate make for a spot-on replica of the crunchy peanut butter treat.  So I was super excited to try my hand at making it.  So I got a two pound bag of candy corn…you only need a pound for one batch, a 18 oz. jar of JIF honey peanut butter…you only need 16 oz. but I used the whole jar, and compound chocolate…I couldn’t find any at the store I was at but knew you could make some from chocolate chips.  So with my ingredients in hand I set out to make the most awesome treat in the world…or so I thought.  What’s to follow is my experience with the recipe and what I learned about it. 

So first of all, I had a big two pound bag of candy corn.  Nothing wrong with that right?  Except that the candy corn was for Halloween…as in trick-or-treating.  What does that mean?  The candy corn came divided into individual baggies.  I needed a pound for my recipe.  So I had to sit there and cut the baggies open to get a pound.  If you are doing this recipe, be sure to get the bag from the regular candy section. It’s just a bag of candy corn.  You tear it open and you are good to go.  It took forever to get a pound of candy corn from those baggies.

So next I put the candy corn in the microwave for a minute.  Stirred.  In for 15 seconds.  Stirred.  in for 15 seconds.  Stirred.  In for 15 seconds.  Stirred.  You’re getting the idea right?  Now when you stir it be sure to fully stir because I think some of the candy was cooking on the bottom but not getting stirred and got a little hard.  But yeah, so that took a little while but I got it melted, but it was quickly cooling on me, so I had to hurry and get the peanut better into the bowl.  This lead to lesson learning two.

Ok, so this hot mucky orange mess in your bowl is starting to cool no sooner that microwave turns off.  You have got to get that peanut better stirred in and then put it all in a pan to fully cool.  But like I said, this stuff is already cooling. This is where I made my big mistake I think.  When I pulled the candy corn out and placed it on a tray on the counter I had to open the peanut butter…as in take off the top and pull off the protective seal, and scoop it out and into the candy corn blob.  I stirred every time I got a little something in, but this stuff was cooling fast.  By the time I was done the stuff at the bottom was hard as a rock and I gave up fully blending so I wouldn’t end up with a rock in the bowl.  So I quickly scooped it into a parchment paper lined 8x8 pan.  Now what I quickly learned was that I should have scooped the peanut butter out into a separate bowl and have it waiting with a spatula to quickly scoop into the candy corn the second it comes out.

So I put the mess into a parchment lined 8x8 pan and put it into the fridge.  I believe this was mistake number 3.  Why? Because when I pulled it back out it was super hard to cut.  I think if it would have been allowed to harden at room temperature it would have been easy to cut and not have crumbled like mine did.  But after some hard work, and yes a little bit of sweat, I got it cut into some chunks.  Now it was time for chocolate.

Ok, so I couldn’t find almond bark or melting chips at the store I was at, so I had to pick up an alternative that I wasn’t to happy using, but it was the next best thing.  Chocolate chips.  Yes, like the kind you put in chocolate chip cookies.  So you’d think I would just melt them and coat my candy with it right?  Wrong.  Seems chocolate chips are too dense when melted.  It needs some fat in there to make it flow more.  Enter vegetable shortening.  Yes, we are talking about the Crisco here people.  Ok so here’s the recipe of how to make compound chocolate out Hershey’s chocolate chips.  Ok, so for every cup of chocolate chips you have, you add a tablespoon of shortening to the mix.  I used two cups of chocolate chips, roughly the whole 12 oz. bag, and two tablespoons of shortening.  I pop that into the microwave and microwave it for 40 seconds and then stir.  Then I put it in for 20 seconds and stirred.  20 seconds then stirred.  20 seconds then stirred.  You get the idea here again right?  Good.  So once it was melted I realized that I hadn’t cut the peanut butter mix beforehand, another thing I would suggest.  So I thought I could do it quickly.  As stated above, it took a while.  Well once I got it cut I was worried the chocolate would be hard again, but oddly enough it wasn’t.  It was still smooth and flowing…something I must admit freaked me out a bit.  Makes you wonder what that stuff does in the ol’ arteries.  But I digress.  Moving on.

So here I had my nice homemade compound chocolate.  I had two mini racks of yet to be coated Butterfinger bars.  So I started pouring the chocolate over the bars.  Mistake number 4.  Dip it people.  Your chocolate will go farther.  I didn’t realize that until I got done with the first rack.  The second rack I dipped as best I could in what was left of the chocolate…I was not making another batch.  For the most part things got covered, on top.  The bottoms of most of them were basically bare.  So dipping surely is the best way to stretch your chocolate and get full coverage.

I popped my Butterfingers into the fridge for about an hour to set.  I pulled them out and went to try one.  Mistake number 5.  People, when you are messing with candy or sticky stuff in general, coat whatever surface you are using in cooking spray or some cooking oil of some kind because it will stick otherwise.  I had chunks pull off in my hand but then leave the bottoms of the chunks attached to the rack.  *Shaking my head.*  So I grabbed a flipper and scraped off the bars as best I could.  Once off, I finally got the try the fruits of my labor.  Final thoughts?  The peanut better part tastes shockingly like the Butterfinger peanut butter, but it was more soft and chewy than hard and crunchy.  The product as a whole?  Yeah with the chocolate I wasn’t tasting Butterfinger, even though my friend swears it did taste like it.  Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t Butterfinger.  I still have a ton left in the fridge and I planned to give it a second try tomorrow since it will have had some time to “age”, and then see if maybe I can taste Butterfinger.  As it stands right now I don’t see myself making this recipe again.  It just wasn’t what I expected.  So now I have tons of peanut butter, chocolate chips and candy corn sitting around.  Humm, well the candy corn is in baggies so I can eat those as a little sugar kick…which I really don’t need after my visit with the dentist the other day.  As for the chocolate, there’s always uses for chocolate, so I’m not worried about it sitting around for too long.  And the peanut butter is destined for good ol’ fashion pb&j’s.  Yum.  But all-in-all I’d call this experiment a mixed success. I got what I started out to make…well…sort of, and it doesn’t taste bad just not really like Butterfinger.  So while it’s not 100% what I wanted it wasn’t 100% what I didn’t want.  So we will loosely call this a success. 

So, tell me what you think.  Still want to try your own Butterfingers?  Have you already done it?   What did it taste like?  Did you use something different from me to get the taste you got?  Please share, I’d love to know.  Maybe with the right encouragement I’ll be willing to give it another try…next year. 

And on that note I will bring the post to close.  It’s just after…4 a.m.!!!  What am I still doing up?!?   I wanted to craft in the morning!!!  I guess that’s not happening.  Oh well, early afternoon crafting is just as fun.  Hope all of you have a great and crafty weekend and I will talk to you soon.  Be good until then.  Bye for now.

Yawning and stretching,
Michelle

My New Favorite Crafty Read!

Hey guys and dolls!  So I was surfing the web through some mommy blogs, don’t ask why, and it lead me to one crafty mommy blog that has just blown my mind.  Mini Eco is a super cute blog with tons of creative and crafty tutorials for moms/dads and kids to do together.  Check out some of the projects I’m just itching to try.

{source}

Take a look at her woven paper art.  I don’t know what I like more about this, the 8-bit look of the art, the rainbow colors, or the fact that it’s woven.  You know what, screw it, I pick all of the above.  It’s just awesome all around.

{source}

This next one is so cool. A woven paper topper.  Now first of all I love the newspaper wrapping paper, proving it does not have to be store bought to look good and presentable.  But then you add this rainbow weaving on it and it takes on a whole new look and personality.  Love it.

{source}

And a last one are these color pencil beads.  I especially love what she did here with the points and the bead combo.  Love the bright color too.  There is a tutorial  on a blog I found Mino Eco through called Design Mom.  She shows in detail how to get these point beads and also how to get smaller beads by shaving off some of the end of the pencil. I am so going to try these and soon.

Honestly there is nothing on the site I don’t just find fascinating.  And before you begin to wonder, no I don’t know who runs the site, but I wish I did.  I would love to pick her brain on where she comes up with her awesome ideas.  Her blog is just so amazing there isn’t a post that I don’t want to read.  Speaking of reading, I’m off to read some more of her blog.  I hope you will read her blog too and ooh and aah over the many cool things she shares.  Talk to you lovelies later.

Rainbow paper and color pencil beads,
Michelle

Persepolis

Just watched this movie and thought I’d share it with you all.  It’s about a young in 1978 in Iran and things that happen in her life up to about 1994.  I found this view of Iran and the version seen from a young girl to be interesting.  The movie starts the year I was born so it was extra interesting to see how she lived and to think back to how I lived back then and just can’t even begin to imagine how she handled all she went through.  It’s really an amazing peek in a part of the world many of us may not know about.  Enjoy.

Loves ya,
Mouse

Georgy Girl

{source}

So I have “known” of Georgy Girl since I was child.  My mom has had this album by The Seekers for forever.  She would let me borrow her records and along with the Mamas and Papas this record always came to my room with me.  I don’t recall many of the other songs on this album except maybe one or two others, but Georgy Girl I would listen to over and over again.  I would sing and dance along with this song and at my young age feel they were talking about me.  Can you tell who didn’t have high self esteem as a kid?  LOL!  Here’s the song if you are interested.

Well when I grew older I learned from my mom the song was for a movie called Georgy Girl, that I found out when I grew even older was based off of a book called Georgy Girl.  My mom told me about the movie and well, I had to watch it.  It was from the 1960s, it was British, and it was that corny camp kind of movie I love, so I HAD to watch it.  Speaking of watching, and totally off the topic, the other day I watched a video online of Soleil Moon Frye dressed up as Punky Brewster…as in at her age now, to say thanks to her million Twitter followers.  It was a bit corny and camp as well.  Don’t know why that came to mind.  But moving back to Georgy Girl.

{source}

*Warning, I am going to talk about the movie so there are spoilers ahead.*  So in short this movie is a about a girl named Georgy, third person to the right in the picture, who lives with her best friend Meredith, second person to the right.  Meredith dates Jos, first person on the left.  Georgy’s parents work for James, guy on the right, because basically they fell on hard times and he hired them as help in his mansion, oh did I mention James was rich, and he helped raise Georgy by paying for schooling for her and making a studio for her in his house so she can give dance classes to children.  So the going thing in the movie is Georgy is a fat ugly nobody while Meredith is a thin sexy somebody.  Jos comes over to pick Meredith up for dates and sometimes has to wait while Meredith is out on another date.  During this time Georgy keeps him company.  They are friends even though he calls her names like Fat Face and constantly remarks on her large body…which is easily a 12-14 in US sizing.  Well while all that is going on, James…the rich guy, is dealing with the fact that not only is his wife ill and refusing to go to the doctor for help but try to heal herself on her own but he also is seeing he cares for Georgy in more than a fatherly way.  One night when she shows up for a party he gives her a shocking proposal that she avoids giving her answer on for a while.  She avoids James as much as possible while she deals with new issues popping up in her life with a pregnancy, a marriage, a divorce, an adoption, a death, and then another marriage.  Whew, girl is busy.  In the end Georgy ends up kind of where she wanted.   I feel she would have preferred a different outcome but it gave her what she wanted…kind of.

I know I left out some of the bits and pieces, but I figured I would just in case you want to watch the movie.  And since I aim to please, here’s the movie.  You can either watch it down below or click here for a slightly bigger screen or so you can watch it full screen.  It’s a little over an hour and half.  Enjoy.    If you like old movies, British movies, or old British movies you’ll love Georgy Girl.

Yeah, I know the video window is big, but I didn’t want to mess up the viewing of the movie if you decided to watch it on my blog.  So I sacrifice for all of you.    Talk to you guys soon.  Be good until then. 

Loves ya,
Mouse