Sweet Mistakes

I am posting today in keeping with my promise to share both triumphs and failures in the kitchen. While I hope the balance remains heavily on the triumphs side of the scale, today's post might best be classified as a failure. But, as is often the case with baking disasters, something quite delicious and unexpected can often come from a botched attempt at something else. Herein lies the story of these Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles with Pecans.

While at work yesterday, I was struck with something I thought would be a brilliant chocolate creation. Looking back, it seems like a terrible idea that was not thought out properly, but that's the agony of hindsight, isn't it? Everything seems clearer looking back. But back to the idea, homemade dark chocolate candy bars filled with caramel, coconut, and pecans and topped with melted peanut butter baking chips.

I melted dark chocolate and dolloped a couple tablespoons into each cupcake liner, followed by the caramel, coconut, and pecans. Then, melted the peanut butter chips and capped each chocolate creation off with a generous scoop. In my head, the chocolate would harden, leaving a gooey caramel center and a firm peanut butter top, like a candy bar. In the morning, I realized the sheer magnitude of my creations, and not in a good way. They might have been successful, had I used about 1/8 of the chocolate and peanut butter chips, but what I ended up with were chocolate bricks in the shape of cupcakes - enough to make most people sick to their stomachs after a few bites.

Standing in the kitchen in my pajamas, I felt disappointment start to creep in. Because of the expense of baking, and being that it's not exactly a necessity (though some may beg to differ), I focus most of my foodie energy into meals, saving the baking for trips home when I can raid my mom's pantry. When I do bite the bullet and buy baking supplies, I want whatever I am making to turn out well. I took a breath, cleared my head, and decided that these bricks in front of me could be molded into something much more delicious.


Melting them down was my first course of action, though I didn't know what I would do afterwards. I placed everything, coconut, caramel, pecans, dark chocolate, and peanut butter chocolate into a pan and began the process of melting it, hoping for some sort of silky goodness. What I got instead was a consistency more akin to cookie dough than melted chocolate.



Confused as to what I should do next, I transferred the chocolate dough to a bowl and added a cup of creamy peanut butter, after which I formed the dough into 1-inch balls. Realizing these now were fairly similar to chocolate truffles, I rolled them in cocoa powder and placed each truffle in its own paper baking liner. The result? Pure chocolatey peanut butter deliciousness! The pecans gave them a nice crunch, and surprisingly, they stayed soft. I would love to give you the recipe, but it will have to wait until I am able to try them again, this time intentionally. Here's to making disasters in the kitchen something worth savoring!

Madison