Mennonite Monday - Salted Peanut Chews

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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This week decided to make the Salted Peanut Chews (pg 85W).  I need to give a little explanation about my experience before I encourage you to make this recipe.  For me, this recipe was a flop, however there where a few changes I made, which could have created the way they turned out.  With that said, I will also mention that I have had these bars before and they tasted very good, so I would still encourage you to make this recipe if you note the mistakes I made, which will be outlined in the narrative below. 

Salted Peanut Chews

1 1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp soda

1/2 cup margarine

1 tsp vanilla

2 egg yolks

3 sups mini marshmallows

Topping:

2/3 cup corn syrup

1/4 cup margarine

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups peanut butter chips

2 cups rice cereal

2 cups salted peanuts

Heat oven to 350*.  Combine all crust ingredients except marshmallows until crumb mixture forms.  Press in bottom of ungreased 9x13".  Bake 12-15 minutes.  Immediately sprinkle with marshmallows.  Bake 1-2 minutes until marshmallows puff.  Cool.  Prepare topping.  In large sauce pan heat corn syrup, margarine, vanilla and peanut butter chips until smooth and melted.  Remove from heat, stir in cereal and nuts.  Immediately spoon over marshmallow crust, chill, cut into bars, 36 bars.  

 All of the crust ingredients ready to mix. 

 The crumbly crust mixture. 

 The crust pressed in the bottom of the 9x13 pan. 

 Adding the marshmallows.  I would used a whole bag of marshmallows next time, not just 3 cups.  

 After the marshmallows have puffed up.  Here was my first mistake, I did not let the marshmallows cool before I put on the topping, which made the marshmallow layer almost nonexistent between the other two layers.  

 The ingredients that need to be melted for the topping.  I made two mistakes for this.  1) I didn't have any corn syrup, so I used a substitution of 2/3 cup sugar and 3 Tbl water.  Taste wise I think the substitution worked fine, but the texture lacked.  2) I heated the mixture too fast and the peanut butter chips didn't not want to melt correctly. 

 The heated topping mixture. 

 Pouring the mixture over the rice cereal and peanuts.  

 Everything mixed together. 

 Adding the mixed topping.  

The finished product.  As a said earlier, this did not turn out very well for me, but I have had these bars before and they are very good, so it may have been due to the changes and substitutions I made.  

Be sure to vote for next weeks recipe in the tool bar to the right.