making peanut butter balls is quite easy.
Peanut butter balls
2 ½ cups (28 oz jar) chunky peanut butter
1 pound powdered sugar (4 cups)
½ cup plus 3 T butter
3 cups rice krispies
1 package chocolate
1/3 stick cooking paraffin.
Toss rice krispies in powdered sugar.
Melt peanut butter and butter together, pour over rice krispies and powdered sugar and mix all together. portion out the peanut butter mix onto a wax paper covered cookie sheet and chill. Roll into small balls after cooled. Melt together chocolate and paraffin and dip the peanut butter balls.
I actually didn't use parafin for the Pweb coconut creams and peanut butter balls. I used an alton brown technique.
most chocolate when melted won't set back up unless it's tempered. that's because if it goes over 96 degrees iit loses the crystalline structure that allows it to set up hard. parafin lets the chocolate set, but it has a waxy texture, naturally, and is a much thinner and softer coat of chocolate. tempering resets the crystalline structure in the chocolate but is a massive pain in the ass and requires special equipment, iirc. another alternative is to add almond bark to the chocolate, like with the peanut clusters, but that will result in a much sweeter coating and be less chocolately But Alton has a way to melt chocolate so you can dip things in it and it sets back up as hard as it was before. It just takes time and patience. basically you take a heating pad, like the kind you use for a sore back/muscles, put it in a big bowl, put another mixing bowl on top of it and then plug in and turn on the heating pad to its highest level. Then pour the chocolate chips into the top bowl, and wait, stir it every few minutes. It'll probably take about 45 to melt a package of chocolate chips (less if you use chocolate chopped off a block yourself as the pieces would be smaller) and you'll have an extremely thick melted chocolate about 94 degrees. dip the balls, taking care not to use too much chocolate per ball, as it's easy to pick up an awful lot of chocolate and set on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper and then chill. doing it this way will probably take about a package and a half of chocolate chips rather than a single package you can get away with if using the paraffin.
this technique can be seen in Good Eats season 8 episode 10
the Art of Darkness III which is also where I learned to make the truffles.
btw I used Gutillard semi-sweet chocolate chips, for all the chocolate which are by far the best chocolate chips I've ever tasted and I've tried most every variety. luckily they're in regular supermarkets on the west coast. The exception is the ganache in the truffles used Sharffen Berger 70% and they were rolled in Trader Joe's unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch processed but still a really great cocoa powder).
I used a number 60 disher for portioning out my peanut butter balls, but my mom just uses a spoon or her hands.
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Rocky road 'fudge'
