seinfeld
Funny Bone Bites: Easy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
I don’t know if you heard, but Hostess has gone out of business. Anyone else see the irony in a “snack cake” company biting the dust when Americans are the fattest they’ve ever been?
Any way, Funny Bones (chocolate ganache covered, peanut butter cream filled chocolate cakes) where just about my Dad’s favorite thing ever. And Drake’s Cakes, the maker of those and such fine things as Ring Dings (shout out to Aunt Ang!) and Coffee Cakes (watch that Seinfeld episode with Newman & Martin in the hospital and with Elaine’s endoscopy), was also owned by Hostess. Damnit. My dad, CHRISTopher, was born on Christmas Day, which means on top of gifts each year, my family also gets cake on December 25th. With Funny Bones officially dead, however, and with my folks traveling at different points this holiday season, I set out to find a chocolatey, peanut buttery substitute that was easy to bake in any kitchen or kitchenette stocked only with the bare necessities, and minimizing what would have to be purchased at the store.
Funny Bones Cookie
- 1 box of Devil’s Food cake mix
- 1/3 cup oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp instant espresso powder (optional)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
UPDATE: Not all boxed cake mixes are created equal! If your cookie dough is too moist, add 1/4 cup flour and 1 TBSP dutch processed cocoa for much more moldable batter. Your dough may not be crumbly like the photo and may be a little sticky, but keeping a ramekin of water near by to just lightly dip your fingertips in while rolling the dough around the filling will help tremendously. They still come out exactly the same and just as delicious.
Filling:
- 5 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (choosey Moms choose Jif…because it has less salt than many others)
- 1 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
- You can substitute everything above under “Filling”, do a caramel version and just use Rolos
Chocolate Coating
- 11/4 cups bittersweet Ghirardelli chips
- 1 TBSP + 1 tsp vegetable shortening
*Can you use store bought icing? Yup. Can you just sprinkle each with powder sugar to simplify? Sure. Does ganache make heroes of average men? You betcha!
Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix the Filling ingredients together. Yes, we’re starting with the filling. Once you get the butter, sugar, and peanut butter blended well together, stick it in the fridge to firm up a bit. At that point you can move on to the cookie aspect of this recipe, which is incredibly easy. And it’s meant to be. ‘Cause if given the option of baking while on holiday or drinking a pomegranate martini in a hot tub, which do you think I’ll choose? (Hint: It’s not baking.)
Mix the cake, eggs, and oil together. It will look crumbly, but that’s okay. Its easily moldable.
Take just about a tablespoon of the oily cake/cookie batter into your hand, roll into a ball and flatten in your palm. Take about a heaping teaspoon of the peanut butter mixture and drop into the center of the cookie. Gently fold the sides of the cookie dough up around the peanut butter. Don’t worry if the dough cracks on you; once the sides are folded up as best as you can, roll lightly into a ball, smoothing cracks with your fingers. If there is any noticeable seam, place that down on the ungreased cookie sheet. Each stuffed ball should be about a heaping tablespoon. You will also probably have some peanut butter mixture left over.
Bake for 8-10 minutes. I baked mine for 10, but could have easily pulled them from the oven after 9 for a slightly chewier cookie. The cookies will have spread just a little, puffed in the center, and should just start to be cracking on the top. Let cool on the sheet for 5-10 minutes before moving to a cooling rack. While cooling, melt the chocolate chips and shortening in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave in 10-15 second intervals, stirring in-between each, until the ganache mixture is nice and runny. Drip about a teaspoon or so of the ganache over each cookie, smoothing with the back of a spoon. There will be more than enough chocolately topping to cover each. I then topped mine with chocolate sprinkles…because why not? Refrigerate for about 30 minutes or so to help the glossy ganache solidify. Makes 26 cookies.
UPDATE: My mother & friends have both stated – without tasting one of these delectable cookies – that the chocolate sprinkles are over-kill. Now, my heart isn’t as shriveled and black as theirs, but to each his own. They are delicious with or without them. I know, because I’ve eaten entirely too many already.
UPDATE 2: The worst thing about these cookies (that I’ve discovered only just this morning) is that they’re even better the next day, AND they freeze perfectly. And my friends are already on me to “test” this recipe again today. Good thing I went to the gym already today.
The Void in Your Soul is Your Lack of Nakatomi Inc
I like staged houses. I really do. I like original bright art on white walls, clean lines, and a void of family photos. I like flow and bursts. Bare and pops. Simplicity and vibrancy. I like darkness turned to light. Which is why I love Nakatomi Inc.
I’m not one for plugs, but holding back on that which is awesome is also not my style. Artist Tim Doyle takes the most memorable scenes of movies, shows, the pieces that all hit us – and not necessarily in a reminiscent way – and makes beauty where there’s bloodshed, calm silence and awe where there’s chaos. I personally have a number of his works from his Wes Anderson series. In my bathroom, a beautiful barefoot woman ties up her hair prior to cleaning another motel room (Bottle Rocket) and in my living room a well traveled suitcase is in the hand of an unseen man boarding a train (Darjeeling Limited). The prints are amazing, iconic, and beautiful pops of color in my otherwise drab living space. And the last thing any viewer ever thinks they’re admiring is a movie poster. They stand there staring, it can’t be helped, seeing something creative and really gorgeous, but also attempting to rack their brains on why they feel connected to the prints. On the very rare occasion that people recognize a print’s inspiration, they seem even that more attached to it.
In Doyle’s work I get to unabashedly feed my geek soul with scenes of my favorite stories in a very unique way, balancing darkness with bold colors, sometimes turning scenes of horror into love, or the mundane into beauty. There are scenes our minds don’t want to visualize again, but Doyle manages to capture these points and depict them in such away that soothes and states that it’s not only okay to stare, you want to stare. But his works go beyond that. Doyle’s prints give new life to a renewed Pop movement for a new generation of art lovers. His works are not only visually stunning, but imaginative and inventive without being hokey or analogous to any other artist.
Please excuse the poor lighting in these photos.
The best way to check out Tim’s work is to check out his websites, Nakatomi Inc. If you’re lucky enough to live in the San Francisco area, you can catch Unreal Estate, a Tim Doyle solo show, at Spoke Art. I’ve known about this upcoming show for a while, but at work yesterday I had a coworker run up to me, Macbook in hand, to show me something “awesome” he found online. He revealed an image of a building near cooling towers, it may be early dawn or a dirty night, an unwelcoming, dirty parking lot, a poor part of town that is cold, but not unattractive in its honesty and industrialism. And I immediately recognized it as Tim Doyle’s piece of the Kwik E Mart. From the Simpsons.
You may have to know it to get it, but you don’t have to know it to appreciate it.
I don’t watch Breaking Bad, but there are a few prints Doyle has done of the show that I can’t imagine I’ll live without for much longer.
Along with the Simpsons print, the Spoke Art show in San Francisco will also feature works depicting locations from The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Sesame Street, Arrested Development, and more.
I will not be attending the San Francisco art show as I live in Austin. I will, however, be spending my weekend obtaining a new frame and hanging the new print I purchased from Nakatomi Inc yesterday. And I can’t wait.
The Nerdy Foodie 