While cookies were always a BIG focus at Christmastime, it’s nice to try something different, too. In this 1994 episode, Arlene makes some interesting candies that all have peanut butter in them. If you like peanut butter, this is the show for you! Recipes include peanut butter cup bars, peanut butter fudge, and “gobstoppers!”
NOTE: We unfortunately do not have the exact recipe for “chocolate balls,” but the process is simple: you just take Ritz crackers and spread half of each cracker with peanut butter, then dip that same half of each cracker in melted chocolate.
Peanut Butter Gobstoppers
These funny candies are made with white chocolate and penaut butter.
Ingredients
- 1 lb white chocolate (disks, chips, or blocks)
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 2 cups mini marshmallows
- 2 cups crisp rice cereal
- 4 dozen holiday cupcake papers
Instructions
- In a microwave-safe bowl, slowly melt white chocolate. Microwave on high for 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between until smooth.
- Stir peanut butter into white chocolate. The warmth of the chocolate should help the peanut butter melt. When fully blended, stir in marshmallows and crisp rice cereal.
- Line a small muffin tin with holiday cupcake papers, and dollop mixture into papers and allow to cool and setup. To speed cooling, place in refrigerator. Makes several dozen. Enjoy!
Peanut Butter Cup Bars
It's like a chocolate peanut butter cup, but easier!
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 cup melted butter (two sticks)
- 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
- 2 cups milk chocolate chips
Instructions
- Spray a 13×9 baking dish with cooking oil spray. In a large bowl, combine peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar, and graham cracker crumbs. Dump mixture into greased baking dish, and pat out mixture evenly all the way to the corners.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, melt milk chocolate chips by microwaving on high for 30 seconds at a time, stopping to stir in between. Once melted, pour all over flattened peanut butter mixture, spreading chocolate evenly into one layer with a butter knife or spatula. Allow to cool and setup for 2 hours (or cool faster in the refrigerator). Cut into parts and put in cupcake papers for saving. Makes lots. Enjoy!
Peanut Butter Fudge
This super easy recipe makes an amazing gift.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter-flavored vegetable shortening
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- Combine shortening and peanut butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir continually until melted. Turn off heat, add vanilla extract, and dump mixture ontop of powdered sugar in a large bowl.
- Stir to combine powdered sugar with peanut butter mixture. (It will take some time.) Once fully combined, pat mixture into an 8×8 or 9×9 metal baking pan, and allow to fully cool.
- To make cutting easier, chill pan in refrigerator, then cut into very small squares. Fudge can then be packaged in a nice tin layered with waxed paper and given as a gift. Enjoy!
Pecan Cream Pralines
A sweet southern treat!
Ingredients
- 1 lb brown sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 3/4 cup evaporated milk (not sweetened condensed milk)
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 cups pecan halves
Instructions
- Generously butter 2 baking sheets. In a medium saucepan, mix together sugar, salt, milk and butter. Stir and cook over low heat until sugar is dissolved and mixture reaches soft-ball stage, 234 degrees on a candy thermometer.
- Remove pan from heat and let mixture cool, about 5 minutes. Then beat until mixture begins to thicken. Add pecans and gently stir to coat nuts.
- Quickly drop tablespoons of mixture onto prepared sheets and flatten into 2-inch patties. If mixture becomes too stiff, stir hot water in gradually, a teaspoon at a time. Makes about 20 patties. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Well, hello and welcome to At Home today. I hope that you’re having a wonderful day. I’m just getting started on Christmas cards. I know it’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Imagine, it’s already time to be thinking about getting the cards out, getting the guest list for any holiday parties that you might be having, getting those put together. How about the gift list? I bet the kids are already, mom, look, this is what I want with those catalogs. Do you ever notice how many catalogs come in the mail right about this time? Because everybody’s thinking, man, I’ve got to get these gifts. What am I going to get the kids? The kids will tell you what they want for Christmas, be sure. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope it was a time when you enjoyed some spare time, maybe some free time, with your family and you were gathered, loved ones around you, and I hope it was a blessed time for you. And I hope that we spent that time thinking and being very thankful like we should. Now we’re gearing up for another holiday, it seems like it comes so quickly. This is one of four very special programs that we do every year getting ready for Christmas. And the first installment on those special programs, today we’re doing Christmas candies, different things that you can prepare for the holidays that you can do it ahead of time or that you can even give them as gifts. A lot of people because of the economy and because the prices of things are so high are now giving gifts that they have prepared in their kitchen, whether it be jars of jelly that they’ve made, or some kind of a relish that maybe they made in the fall or a spaghetti sauce or something from your heart, something that you’ve put part of yourself into, and cookies are a great gift idea, and so are candies. Nut rolls are a great, great gift idea. And I hope that you’ll think about some of those things, wrap them up in it with a big red bow and hand one to your mailman or to the paper boy or to maybe that person who’s really been nice to you that when you go to the grocery store, they’re always there. They’re packing your box for you or they’re carrying your groceries to the car, or maybe there’s a clerk there who always is very nice to you and you just want to say thank you in a very special way. How about the hairdresser? How about that? But there’s a lot of people and giving is part of this season. That’s what it’s all about. Because God loved us so much that he gave, he gave Jesus, and that’s what the celebration is about. The birth of his son, Jesus Christ. Well, in just a moment, we’re going to get started with Christmas candies, but first here’s a real important message and an At Home hint just for you. We’ll be right back. Here’s today’s At Home Christmas hint. To quickly soften cold butter, place one unwrapped stick of butter in the microwave oven and microwave on high, 100% power for 10 seconds. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well the first one that we’re going to be preparing today is something called gobstoppers. I can’t say that fast because it’s just, you just can’t do it. And Barbara Wright, a viewer, sent this recipe to me, and this is, first of all, this is white chocolate, and you can buy them in the little bits like the semi-sweet in the store. FoodLand’s has them. And we’ve melted about, uh, let’s see one pound of these. And then we just do them in the microwave really easily. Now we’re gonna add some peanut butter, which is one cup of peanut butter. And this isn’t real hot. Don’t let the chocolate get real hot because you don’t want it to wad up. You know, chocolate is temperamental, believe me. If you’ve ever worked with it, you know what I mean. Okay. Now we have, we’re going to let this peanut butter melt in with the white chocolate. It’s real hard. I wanted to do some low fat things for you, and I’ll tell you, we’re just going to start to have to develop them because I’ve searched and searched very hard to find low fat cookies, candies, et cetera. Did try one that they said was a low fat, and I was real disappointed with the outcome, so I wouldn’t even show it to you. But if you have any of those fat-free ideas out there for cookies and things like that, please, will you send them to me? ‘Cause I’m looking for them all the time. Anyway, we’ve mixed the peanut butter with the white chocolate, and now we’re going to add some Rice Krispies. A couple of cups of Rice Krispies, and also some mini marshmallows. Mini marshmallows. And we’re going to mix them up. I think I have the wrong utensil here. Let me get something else. Get one of my other spoons, cause these are all stickin’. These are fun because we’re going to take some festive Christmas papers. You see, if you notice that there, I have my little mini tins lined with the holiday papers. You see the little print on the back. Aint it pretty? And that adds to the festivities of the season, by just doing some extra special things like adding those papers like that. And basically we’re not cooking this at all. These candies, I’ll tell ya, we’re going simple and easy because I don’t think any of us have time to do a lot of in depth preparation. I know that I sure don’t and I, from what I read in the mail, you folks don’t either. So what I’ve tried to do is develop some things and to present some recipes that will not be so time consuming, and yet the end result is something you’re proud of. Tastes good, has to taste good, and it’s something that everybody will enjoy, even if you give it as a gift. Now you want to make sure that it is all covered, all the marshmallows is covered. This smells absolutely wonderful. And you’re going to take a spoon. And basically, it’s all there is to this. This’ll probably make about, I would say three dozen, but we’ll see. Thank you Barbara for including this recipe to me. And all that you really want to do is just, you don’t want to fill them clear the top, unless you want a whole lot in each of these little cups. But that’s what it is, and when the chocolate starts to set up and harden, this is going to turn into a wonderful treat. Now this is something that kids could even be a part of. Don’t forget to include them in your festivities, because kids love to be able to say, look, I made that. Look what I did, I could do that. Look, mom helped me, but I made this. I really made this grandma, or aunt Minnie or whoever they’re trying to impress. Kids love to be a part of what’s going on at Christmas. Not just in the holiday time, but throughout the whole year, they just to be a part. So I want to encourage you to be sure this is a good time to start checking on your linens, to make sure that they are in preparation for the holidays. Don’t be last minute. You’re planning a party and you say, oh man, the tablecloth has a spot on it. I should have been working on it. This is the time to do it, make those guests list out. And you know, don’t feel like it has to be so extravagant that, you know, because so-and-so gave me a gift that it probably will cost about $20. I need to keep it in that price range. I think we need to get away from that and just say, what can I do without putting a real strain on my budget? We don’t want to be paying for Christmas until June. We want to be giving some gifts from our hearts. I think that’s the important thing. And the gift from your heart, it’s more of you than it is out of your pocket book. And that’s one of the keys to… I love to get gifts. Like Linda Wilson, who works with me here, she always gives me a cross stitch and I know the value of a cross stitch is certainly not in the materials, but I know how busy she is, and I know that she has spent time. No, Linda, I’m not hitting you up for another one this year. But I know from other years that she has spent a lot of time preparing those and that’s time when she could have been doing a lot of other things, because she’s a very busy lady, wife and a mother, and she’s really, um, thinking about me when she’s making those things. So I do appreciate that because I know that that’s something that she has worked hard to do and give it of herself. Now, I’m going to not finish these, ’cause you can see how much this makes. This makes a lot. Probably makes three to four dozen. So I’m going to put these to the side. We’re going to go onto the next one. Those are called gobstoppers. Now remember all the recipes this whole month through Christmas is included in the Christmas booklet that you’re gonna want to send, send this little offering, couple of dollars, whatever, and we have it printed up and it’s At Home Christmas recipes, 1994. You’re gonna wanna be sure to send for it. Okay, the next one is something incredible because it’s called peanut butter cup bars. If you like Reese’s peanut butter cups, this is one you’re going to want. First of all, we’re going to take some peanut butter. Get my peanut butter. I’ll tell you, it’s hard to work with peanut butter ’cause it’s so gooey, but it’s wonderful. Tastes so good. Sandy, my girl here that works with me, she says, “Arlene, I love peanuts. “I like the stuff it makes, “but I just don’t like peanut butter.” She said when her kids were little, she just couldn’t stand to have to make them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I said okay, I know what you’re talking about there. But she’s willing to do it anyway. She goes ahead and scoops it out for us. Nice to have people that work with you who want to see a good end result. I appreciate that. All right, powdered sugar. Well, this is like a bark cookie or candy because you put them in. You can use a jelly roll pan or we have used a large nine by 13, and this is a pound of powdered sugar, by the way. And also this is one cup and a little bit more of graham cracker crumb, all right? Now basically that’s all that’s in the crust part of this. And what we’re going to do is make this a dough that we put in the bottom of this pan and you’re going to press it with a spoon. You’ll see how this will come together. And then you’re going to melt some chocolate, and we’re going to put the chocolate on the top of it. And you want to spray Pam in your pan, first of all, because if you don’t, it may stick when it comes time to get them out. We’re going to be doing cookies in the next couple of weeks and I know everybody always enjoys the cookies, so, be sure to tell your friends and your family, your kids. Get them around, get them all around you there and just let’s make it a special time when we all get together each time for At Home over the next couple of weeks because we’re going to be sharing Christmas in a real special way. All right, we have our batter here and it’s really, it’s no easier than that. I’m telling you, we’re making it simple. These candies could not be easier or simpler and you pour this in. And you’re going to just make sure you spray that Pam on the bottom of that dish. Get this all out of here. Clean it out real good. And you’re going to melt your semi-sweet or your milk chocolate. I believe we use milk on this ’cause I think it’s not quite as strong. Sometimes the semi-sweet just makes it too sweet tasting. There we go. What I’ve found is a plain old spoon seems to be the best for pushing this into the bottom of this pan. And you can dip this in some sugar, if you want to, just to kind of get it… If it seems a little moist, add a little bit more graham cracker crumbs, but it’s real… This isn’t going to be real, real thick. It’s going to be on the thinner side because this is a bar, remember. And if you’re going to do it in a jelly roll pan, it’s even going to be thinner. This might take you a little bit of time, but it’s not an impossibility. Come on, we can do this. It just takes some time. And while we’re doing this, we’re going to take a break, and when we come back, we’ll show you the next step in our peanut butter cup bars. We’ll be right back. Well, we’re back, and as you can see, we’ve pressed the dough into the bottom. Found the heavier spoon does work better, so just persevere and it will be fine. And you want to make sure that the edges are nice and smooth, so tap them down. And then this is the melted chocolate, and all we’re going to do is pour that over top of those peanut butter cup bars. Honestly, it tastes just like it. You’re going to put this in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes because it sets up and then you just enjoy them. I’m sure that they freeze well. I want to specify that I haven’t tried that, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t because everything that’s in them is very easy to freeze. I don’t think there would be a problem. But this is the kind of things, you know, this in like one of those colorful tins or in like an apothecary type jar or that kind of, that makes such a nice gift. It really does. And I like things that I can do ahead of time. I think the success of Christmas, there’s a success by early planning, is to start thinking what can I do now that I’m going to need for later? I’ll tell you that’s true just in life, period, not just at holiday times, but what can I make ahead of time, or what can I get done now that I’m not going to have to run around like a wild person, trying to get it all done when it’s time for me to do it? And I think anything that you can do in making gifts, or if you’re doing needle point, if you’re doing cross stitch or whatever it is that you’re doing, if you get it done as, you know, as soon as you can in planning is a big part of it. Believe me, it is. Well, all I’ve done now is just what I told you I was going to do, put some chocolate on there. Then this goes in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. It’s amazing how easily that sets up. You cut them in bars, put them in the little souffle papers. This is really easy. Kids could help you with this. And that’s something I’ll tell you, once you taste them, you’re going to say it tastes exactly like that famous peanut butter cup that we all like and enjoy. All right, now we’re going to move on to a peanut butter fudge. And this is so easy. It’s like almost embarrassing because there’s only a few ingredients and one of the ingredients is Crisco butter flavor, and I put this out, so not to confuse with butter. This is the Crisco that has the butter flavor to it, and this makes the flavor in this peanut butter fudge. This is again a no cook fudge. And I don’t want you to think this is butter that I’m working with here. You also need a nine or an eight inch square pan. This is important to have the right utensils that you’re working with. And we have one cup of the butter flavor Crisco, and we have a cup of peanut butter, all right? And this is melted. We melted this. Now I’m going to add the peanut butter in there so it will begin to melt. I said, why am I making all these things with peanut butter this year? And I just guess because I haven’t had much peanut butter because low fat diet, you just don’t get peanut butter too often. In fact, probably not at all. And I thought, well, you know, this might be something we could do and kill two birds with one stone. You get a taste for it, and these are easy. Why not? We’ll do it. Now you’re going to mix this together. And if your Crisco is, don’t let it boil, just let it melt. It will melt the peanut butter. And once the peanut butter gets melted, we’re going to add some vanilla to it, just to give it some additional flavor. What I have in here is about four cups of powdered sugar. Let’s add the vanilla right in there. We’re going to mix this around. Want this to be nice and smooth. There are some other cookies that we’re going to be showing you at the end of the program, I’m sorry, candies, that we’re going to be showing you, and they’re called pecan pralines, and I’m going to include the recipes, although we don’t have time. I will include the recipes for that candy in the Christmas booklet, so you want to be sure, now’s the time to send for the Christmas booklet because you know that the next couple of weeks, all the cookie recipes that we do and the Christmas buffet that we’re going to be doing, all of those recipes will be in that little booklet. And it’s important for you to send for them. Send now so you can look them over and then you can make your plans for what you want to use for your holidays. But there’s also, besides the pecan pralines, there’s a recipe for, they’re called chocolate balls and honest, it’s so easy, too. The kids could make these. I mean give them, it only has like three ingredients. It’s a Ritz Cracker and it’s peanut butter, and you spread that and then you dip it in melted chocolate, only halfway, and you put them on a wax paper. It’s so easy that you wouldn’t believe it. And again, you can put some of those in a little gift box. Just imagine how grandma would feel if she knew that little Jerry and Terry made these for her. It’d really, really make her feel good. All right, now we’re going to pour this into the powdered sugar. Make sure we get it all in there. Okay. Now we’re going to mix it around and this makes a delightful peanut butter fudge. There’s no cooking to it. The peanut flavor is there. You put it here and it sets right up. You let it set for just a few minutes, really. I was surprised at how quickly it sets up. Then you can decorate with a little piece of cherry, little piece of a walnut, something like that. But it makes a nice pan full, and it’s very easy to do. The pecan pralines, they have to be cooked to a softball stage, and we just, they’re such a finicky thing. You really have to watch your thermometer. We just didn’t want to take a chance of doing that without it being… Because it’s so finicky. You know, if you miss it, then it’s so hard, it’s like a brick. You can’t even use it, right? So we thought we would just tell you step by step how to make them and show you the finished product, and then it’s a challenge. And I know that it’s a challenge that you can meet and we’re going to have you make them then, too okay? Well, this is coming together. We’re going to just, you have to keep mixing it, mixing it. And we’re going to press this in our pan, and when we’re done, we’ll have peanut butter fudge. Absolutely delicious. And we’ll be right back after this important message on how you can get today’s recipes. To receive your Christmas packet, number 200, containing all of this month’s special holiday recipes, listen very carefully. Just send a self-addressed business sized stamped envelope with a dollar or more to At Home #200, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. You will only need to write once this month to receive all our Christmas recipes from At Home, and have a blessed holiday. Well we’re back, and we want to show you all the good candies that we’ve prepared today. Let’s start over here with our peanut butter cup bars. Very easy and delicious. This is the peanut butter fudge that we were showing you how to do. Here’s the gobstoppers, and we sure want to thank our viewer for sending that good recipe to us. Back here we have, remember I told you about the chocolate balls? This is so easy. This is incredible, and so good. The crew’s all drooling. Here are the pecan pralines. We didn’t get to show you how, but these are delectable, delicious, and something you’re going to want to include when you’re thinking of some gifts to make from the kitchen to those folks that are on your list. Also I want to remind you, everything that you have seen in today’s program, all of these recipes are included in the At Home with Arlene Williams Christmas booklet for 1994. We’d ask you, please send us a contribution and we need you to send us a self addressed stamped business size… This is the business sized envelope. Really, really, really important for you to include this size envelope when you request your recipes, because put this one inside this one and send it to the address that we’ve already talked about. Remember, this is Christmas booklet number 200. Number 200. Really important to get your order in early. All of the recipes during this month through Christmas for four weeks are included in one booklet and you only have to write one time to receive this important pamphlet that has all of the recipes in and even some extra little surprises too I think you’re going to enjoy. So please get your request in the mail as soon as possible. Again, all you send it to is At Home #200, CTV, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499, and include this size envelope with it, it’s addressed to you because you want the recipe to come to you. And of course, an offering like we usually ask you, to please send us a couple of dollars to help us with the printing on this particular booklet. You only have to write once during the month of December. You don’t have to write week after week after week. We try to make it a little simpler for you. And by this way, you can have the recipes ahead of time, and when you’re planning your menus for the holidays, you’ll have them there, and you can also be watching to make sure that you see the particular recipe that you want to see demonstrated. We’ll be showing it right here on At Home. So as I always say, be sure to join us the next time, because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here At Home. See you next time for part one of cookies on At Home. Bye bye.
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Thanks for these recipes. I’m excited to try them.
I am so excited to try some of these recipes. Watched the program on TV and could not get the ingredients written down fast enough. Glad that you have them here. They look soooo yummy.
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