Because you can’t
mess up peanut butter and chocolate, right?
I saw a post about handmade Reese’s eggs cycle through
various friends in my Facebook network and decided I had to try it. The pin, as
you may be familiar with, is from The Recipe Critic blog, http://therecipecritic.com/2013/03/homemade-reeses-eggs/.
As my first pintersperiment I chose these. I love Reese’s
shapes. Something about them just tastes better. They taste saltier to me. They
have a more pleasing texture than the regular cups. They are pleasingly shaped.
I can’t quit them.
Like the start of any well-meaning science experiment I
gathered my supplies according. The only thing I did not have in stock was
shortening. I chose butter as my substitution. For my second deviation I chose
to make a totally different shape and used the Alien Egg Ice mold I got my
boyfriend for Christmas because that’s the kind of geek I am. With this I am
prepared to not feel horrible if my eggs look nothing like the picture (Hypothesis)
because that is exactly how it will most likely turn out.
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| Silicon Ice Mold of Alien Egg Awesomeness |
Birth
I created my peanut dough as per the recipe except for two things: I added salt and omitted the milk. I was also too lazy to break
out the mixer and mixed it by hand. I didn't need the milk at that point as it had
exactly the texture I was looking for. After evidence gathering on the blog
site I determined that the milk was there to make it easier to mix and not be
so “crumbly.” I did not have this problem.
I lightly dusted my mold with flour and proceeded to create little
half eggs that, in retrospect, look deviously like something inappropriate (if
someone had sliced it on the bottom and flattened it out). I froze them as
directed and moved on to the chocolate phase.
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| I should add here that I have no concept of "lightly" flouring anything. |
Substitutiary
Fluidity
Let’s talk about substitutions, otherwise known as variables.
When cooking, there are plenty of options for use as substitutions. Maybe you
need to change a recipe for the sake of allergies, taste, health, or
availability. In this recipe the ingredient in question is shortening. The
reason for the shortening in this recipe is to create a more fluid chocolate to
dip or spread over our eggs. As the Recipe Critic suggests, her recipe tastes
less oily than the commercial one, so I threw oil right out of my lineup. Here
is a quick guide to alternatives for shortening:
Oil – depending on the oil it could take away from the
sweet. Coconut oil might be a good alternative. Oil is typically a straight
measurement substitution for shortening.
Butter – you will almost always have to add a bit more
butter than the recipe asks for in shortening by about 1/16th- to
1/8th more.
Lard – I associate this with a savory dish and not with
sweet. It can, like oils, can potentially change the flavor of your dish
slightly. You need to use 1/16th - 1/8th less than the
required shortening.
And if your recipe is of the type that would be able to use
it, fruit sauces or even nut butters could be used at about half the requested
shortening amount. This recipe was not going to work with either of those
options.
Why Not?
The recipe suggests that you might need more than one bag of
chocolate chips. I have one. I have also accidentally (didn't even bother to
measure) added too much butter in an attempt to make the chocolate an
acceptable level of fluidity for coating. So now my chocolate is too fluid and
too oily looking. With determination and little thought I head to the pantry
and find dark cocoa powder. At this point you know my experiment is a
self-fulfillment of my hypothesis. I also know that in terms of Alien eggs, the
grittier the better, so it does not matter at all that the mixture starts to
look like a mud pie I made in kindergarten and I am going to apply it to my
frozen rock of peanut butter anyway. It’s not like the mold impression was
going to show through the chocolate, but I will know it’s there.
Dipping the frozen eggs in my measuring cup of ill-mixed choco-mud
was not feasible so I used the back of my spoon to “spread” it over all of my
peanut butter eggs and soon it looked like the picture… of the egg chamber in
Alien.
Because my mixture was hard to spread, and because I realized I had no wax paper, I coated the tops and sides as best as I could and put them back in the
freezer for a few minutes to set before doing the bottoms. I then got impatient
and froze them again to set the bottom so I could get to the best part of the
experiment: data gathering.
And now for the results and comparison poster
section of my science project:
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| My Egg |
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| Movie Prop Egg |
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| My egg chamber. Eggs shown back to back for dramatic effect |
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| Movie Egg Chamber |
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| More horrifying view of how quickly eggsperiments can get out of hand |
How Did It Taste?
It tasted like victory and don’t you forget it. Once I
realized that the recipe called for all that extra sugar I had to counteract
it. By adding the salt I created a slight counterbalance and brought back some
of the peanut flavor. I also like saltier baked goods so; it was win-win for
me. Next by adding the unsweetened dark
cocoa powder I neutralized a little more of the overall sweetness of the
mixture.
Chocoholic Boyfriend
Approved
