Fuckeyes.

Because someone asked for the recipe.

The term "Fuckeye" was coined by my writing group, because these are labor intensive. The real name is "Buckeye", and they're called that because the candy looks like the seed of a horse chestnut tree, also known as a Buckeye:


BUCKEYES:

Filling:
six parts powdered/confectioner's sugar
three parts peanut butter
one part regular butter

Do this by VOLUME, not weight. (I did it by weight once and totally screwed it up and kept adding peanut butter to make it right and wound up with like two gallons of filling and we rolled and dipped buckeyes for two weeks and finally threw the rest away in disgust). You can decide how much of the stuff you want to make, and work backward: if you want ten cups of filling, use six cups of powdered sugar, three cups of peanut butter, and one cup of regular butter. If you want to make just a few buckeyes like a test recipe, use six tablespoons confectioner's sugar, three tablespoons of peanut butter, and one tablespoon butter. You get the idea.

Anyway, mix it all up and roll it into balls about 3/4 inch/1 1/2 cm in diameter. An easy way to do this is to pack the filling into a bowl, toss it in the fridge 'til it's hard, then scoop it back out with a melon baller or really small cookie scoop. You can also spread it out in a pan, refrigerate it, and then cut it into squares and roll those into balls. Whatever. It takes forever. Ask friends over and put them to work.

Put the peanut butter balls back in the fridge 'til they're cool, then dip them in melted chocolate about 3/4 of the way. I use a bamboo skewer, stab the balls, swish them through chocolate, and move them back to the tray I took them off of. Let cool, and you're done. (Don't let the peanut butter filling get warm, or it'll fall off the skewer in the chocolate and you've got a hell of a mess on your hands. I take about ten centers out of the fridge at a time, dip them, put them back in and get more out.)

For the chocolate, you can buy high quality stuff, add paraffin so that it gets solid enough to work as a coating, then temper it, and fool around with all that crap. Or you can just chop up Hershey bars (or any other mid-quality chocolate candy bar) and melt those and use them; they've already got the paraffin in them. It's the only time I use cheap chocolate in the Christmas baking.

Some thoughts:

-Make sure all the ingredients of the filling are at room temperature when you try to mix them. You can do it by hand - I have - but the real way to go is a Kitchenaid Mixer and the paddle attatchment. The stuff is really thick, though, so be careful using smaller mixers, you might burn them out.

-I use creamy Jif peanut butter. Traditionally, creamy peanut butter is used, but I'm sure you could use crunchy if that sounded better to you.

-Normally I do the old double boiler method for melting chocolate, but Alton Brown uses two thin metal bowls with a heating pad (cover removed) smashed between them. Since I'm making a lot of truffles this year, I'm going to give it a try. I'll let you all know how well it works.

-Technically, Fuckeyes aren't baking. They're candymaking. So you can feel all clever and sophisticated.



-... -

I was supposed to go to the doctor today to straighten out some of my pain medication. Forty-five minutes before the appointment, the Goober threw herself on the living room floor in a screaming fit. I watched for a few minutes, then called and cancelled the apointment. I apologized for the short notice on the phone, but they could hear the Goober screaming in the background, and I doubt were terribly irritated by my decision to spare them all a screaming toddler. The appointment's rescheduled for the 18th.

When the husbeast gets home, I'm handing her off, locking myself in my office, and knitting. I've had it.