I wanted to use up the Adam’s 100% Natural Crunchy Peanut Butter that had been sitting in the fridge for who knows how long. I thought, why not try making some peanut butter fudge in the air fryer? So, this may get refined, but here’s attempt one.
Realistically, this recipe could be used with a pan on the stove or a glass bowl in the microwave, but I’m only giving air fryer instructions.
Ideas for the next iteration
Too much sugar. The recipes I used as a reference called for about 3:1 powdered sugar to peanut butter. I took it down a notch or three to almost 1:1. But it was still too sweet.
Too much cardamom. Maybe use 1/4 t per extract.
Maybe add one more T. PB, and another of sour cream to make it creamier.
Add chocolate chips sooner, or melt them and stir them in at the end.
Maybe transfer to a different container for chilling and serving.
Ingredients
5 T peanut butter
4 T butter
1 T sour cream
2 T turbadino sugar
2 1/2 T erythritol
1/2 t vanilla extract
1/2 t cardamom extract
1/3 rum extract
1/3 coriander extract
1/3 almond extract
4-6 Bittersweet chocolate chips (optional)
Equipment
Air fryer
Air-fryer-safe bowl large enough to hold all the ingredients but small enough to fit in the air fryer (“the air fryer bowl”)
Microwave safe bowl
Plastic or wooden spatula
Tools to remove the above mentioned bowl from the air fryer safely
And of course, measuring spoons
Directions
Combine all the extracts in a small cup or bowl. In the air fryer bowl, combine the peanut butter, sour cream, and half of the butter. Don’t worry about stirring or mixing.
In a separate bowl, melt the other half of the butter in the microwave. Don’t worry about being exact; the point is to have enough to dissolve the sugars. Speaking of which, next, stir in the turbadino sugar. Add the extracts and stir. Add the erythritol to the mixture and stir. What you have now is a sweet bowl of fatty flavor.
Combine the sweet bowl of fatty flavor with the rest of the ingredients in the air fryer bowl. You may have to use a spatula. Put the air fryer bowl in the air fryer, and bake at 205° F for two or three minutes, with no preheat. When time is up, stir everything up until it looks consistent. Put back in the air fryer. Air fry on 400° F for 3 minutes. Remove the air fryer basket from the air fryer promptly.
Add chocolate chips. Wait half a minute or so, then use the spatula to swirl the melting chips in. You may now lick the spatula 😎. (Based on my spatula licking, this is going to be some delicious fudge.) Let it cool for three to five minutes. While it cools, make sure there is room for the air fryer bowl in the fridge, preferably with some space to avoid heating other things up.
Using the tools mentioned above, remove the air fryer bowl from the air fryer. I used a “cosy” and tongs. Place in the fridge to chill for several hours.
Air fryer peanut butter fudge, chilling in the fridge.
Naturally, if you want this to be keto friendly, use erythritol instead of turbadino sugar.
Are you complaining about the full stops? I have a reputation (and pattern based on two or three data points) to uphold. Do you think it’s hyperbole? Here’s what the critics are saying:
“This tastes divine!”
“It’s so good I want like four more pieces even though I’m already full.”
“This tastes like candy!”
“This is better than most restaurants–no, probably all restaurants–French toast, because most restaurants that have good French toast, it’s what they put on top that makes it taste good.”
The bread I used
Ingredients
1 loaf brioche (mine had 15 slices counting the ends, which I used)
8 brown eggs (4 organic, 4 free range non gmo)
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup sour cream
1 t. Lime juice
Half dropper of B-12 vitamin supplement
1 t. Cardamom extract
1 1/2 t. Lavander syrup
1/2 t. Coriander extract
1/2 t. Rum extract
1/2 t. Almond extract
1 t. Ground cardamom
Directions
If using a cast iron pan, turn the heat on to medium low to let the pan warm up while you prepare the batter. Also, add some olive oil periodically to keep the surface slick and help cook places where the bread is indented.
Crack the eggs into a large bowl, preferably with a wide bottom. Add the sour cream. Add all the liquid ingredients. Add cardamom to taste (I estimate I used 2 teaspoons). Mix with a fork. Also, a note on cardamom extract: it can be expensive! So I made my own. I might put up a recipe for that later. If you don’t want to make your own, and can’t afford or don’t want to buy cardamom extract, you can add more ground cardamom.
Drop a slice of bread into the batter, flip it over in the batter, and put it on the cooking surface of your choice. Repeat until the surface is at maximum capacity. After the batter has cooked a bit, trim off excess from the edges for cleaner looking toast (also, because once you flip the toast, it won’t cook much more), leaving the cooking side down. You can use the trimmed excess as an indicator of how done each side of the toast is. Let cook for a few minutes. When ready, flip toast and let cook a few minutes more. If either side has spots that need more cooking, add a little olive oil, and cook longer. Also find cold or hot spots on your cooking surface and take advantage of them.
Cooking before trimming the excess
When both sides are sufficiently done, stack on a serving dish on the side of your stove. Cook the entire loaf of bread. Be sure to stir the mixture before each slice to avoid having most of the cardamom on the bottom of the bowl and very little on the bread.
First two slices, including the end
This French toast is good enough to eat plain and save yourself the calories of adding sugary and/or fatty toppings. But if you must add something, I highly recommend some lemon syrup and fresh blueberries.
Great plain or with lemon syrup and blueberries
If your guests or their appetites are not up to finishing off every last slice, you can freeze them and serve later, using a toaster or air fryer to reheat.
Leftovers headed for the freezer, or maybe my belly
If you have batter left over, or if you don’t have enough batter to use the whole loaf, you can cook the remainder as some delicious scrambled eggs. They’ll taste a bit like a scrambled egg version of my cheesecake recipe.
Makes: 3 cheesecakes in pie tins or 1 cheesecake in a springform pan.
coriander seeds, whole
cardamom seeds, whole
16 graham crackers / crust
1 stick butter / crust
4 T wheat flour (or sorghum flour for GF)
4 T cornstarch
1.5 cups sugar
1 T sugar
1 lemon
zest
1 T lemon juice
1 t vanilla extract
1 t almond extract
1.5 t rum extract
1/4 t cardamom extract (optional)
1/4 t coriander extract (optional)
2 T milk
8 oz. sour cream
32 oz. ricotta
16 oz. cream cheese
4 eggs
Grind coriander and cardamom (I prefer to use a mortar and pestle). Divide into three piles: for the crust, the filling, and a garnish on the top of the filling. You’ll want about 1/4 teaspoon for each crust, 1/4 teaspoon for the filling, and less than 1/4 teaspoon should be enough for the garnish. If using pie tins instead of a springform pan, you’ll need three crust piles, one for each crust.
Crush (blend or use a rolling pin) graham crackers (or oreos or whatever, but note that chocolate graham crackers work better than oreos due to the filling of the oreo cookie interfering with the butter’s ability to make the crumbs congeal). If you plan to blend graham crackers, you may want to crush them in the packages first to avoid air gaps in the blender.
Melt 1 stick of butter per crust. If the butter is thawed, 30 seconds in the microwave should do it; more, and the butter will start splattering. Put one crust pile of coriander and cardamom in the butter. Mix with graham cracker crumbs. Should hold shape when squeezed. Yes, you’ll need the whole stick for one pie-tin worth of crust. Press into pan (3 pie tins or one 9″ spring form round pan). Refrigerate (if doing pie tins, do all three at once).
Mix 4 T flour, 4 T cornstarch, 1.5 cups sugar in a separate bowl. Set aside. We’ll call this the dry goods.
Next we’ll make what I call the seasonings liquid. But before we do, a word about the optional cardamom and coriander extracts is in order. Cardamom extract tends to be very expensive or watered down; so I make my own (for tips on that, see the full post). Coriander extract doesn’t seem to really exist, except as an herbal supplement so it isn’t quite appropriate for baking; again, I make my own. You can get a stronger flavor by just increasing the amount of freshly ground spices that you put into the seasonings liquid in the next step.
For the seasonings liquid, zest a lemon into a separate bowl. Juice about 1/4 to 1/2 of it, for 1 T of lemon juice, and add it to the lemon zest. Add to this bowl the extracts: almond, rum, vanilla, and if doing the optional, cardamom, and coriander. Feel free to omit any of the flavorings, but it won’t be the same; feel free to use emulsions (shake well before pouring) instead of extracts. Add one pile of ground coriander and cardamom to the mix.
Turn oven on to 350 °F.
In a large bowl, beat sour cream and ricotta cheese together. Add cream cheese and beat. You may be tempted to add the seasonings liquid before the cream cheese. Don’t. It makes it harder to make sure any little lumps introduced by the cream cheese are smoothed out, and you can end up over beating it.
Still in the large bowl, add the seasonings liquid and beat. Add the dry goods and beat. Be sure the mixture is mixed thoroughly. In a separate bowl, crack eggs; beat lightly (mix with a fork, as if making french toast for yourself). Add milk and mix in 1 T sugar. Be careful not to beat the eggs too much (over-beating the eggs or adding them too early can lead to the batter rising too fast and cracking). Add this sweetened egg mixture to the large bowl and fold it in. If everything else was well-mixed, it should only need folding in.
Place cookie sheet with edges on the bottom rack. Put a small amount of water in the cookie sheet (about half full) to provide more humidity for the cheesecakes while they bake to help them not crack.
Remove pie tins / cake pan from fridge. Pour batter into crust. Sprinkle spice mixture on top of batter. For an extra challenge, you can try putting the cheesecakes into the oven first, and then try to sprinkle the spice mixture in. You only get points for this challenge if you manage to complete it without burning yourself. Use a knife or fork to mix spices in with very top layer of batter. Set timer for 1 hour. Turn oven down to 325 °F (or if using glass dishes, reduce to 300 °F). Put pie tins / cake pans in oven. If using pie tins, try to cook all three at the same time. At about 15 minutes, check for uneven distribution of the filling, and rotate any that need it to compensate for an uneven baking surface. If your oven has uneven temperature zones, you may need to swap the positions of the pans after 1/2 hour: rotate them even if they don’t look like they need it; rotate them at 30 minutes, not 45 minutes.
While the cheesecakes are cooking, you can clean up after yourself. Also while they cook, you can make sure there is enough room in the fridge for the pans when they are cool enough to refrigerate.
After 45 minutes of cooking time, check on the cheesecakes. If you used enough water in the cookie sheet, watch out for the steam coming out of the oven. Your face will thank you. If you went away for that 45 minutes and came back knowing you’re about to check if the cheesecake is done, re-read the first three sentences of this paragraph when you get back. Your face will thank you. (If you didn’t use enough water, the sheet will be dry or almost dry, and you risk cracking the tops.) Look for the 2-2.5 inch border of mostly done and the jiggly center, as mentioned in the short video above. If they are not done enough, try cooking and checking in 5-10 minute increments. When they are done enough, turn off the oven, set a timer for 1 hour. Come back and check in an hour. It should either be done, or it needs to cook or stand in the oven longer. At this point, you’ll need to let the pan(s) cool off before refrigerating the cheesecake(s).
Regular chocolate milk, e.g. Cream O’ Weber or Meadow Gold, isn’t chocolatey enough. And has a lot of sugar. Gourmet chocolate milk is expensive. And the prices have been on the rise.
An easy solution is to buy a half gallon of regular chocolate milk, pour 8 oz into a microwave safe mug or bowl, heat for 90 seconds, then stir in 5 T of cocoa powder, let cool, and pour back into the half gallon.
The above solution solves the “not chocolatey enough” issue. This recipe is to try to address the “has a lot of sugar” issue.
1 – half gallon milk or chocolate milk container
9 T cocoa powder
7 T erythritol
4 T Sugar in the Raw turbadino sugar
1/2 gallon whole milk (if you can’t do whole milk, that’s fine, but it works better with whole)
Pour 8 oz of milk into a microwave safe mug or bowl. Do this twice. Heat the first one for 90 s. Stir in the turbadino sugar and the erythritol. Heat the second one for 90 s. Stir in the cocoa powder. Let both cool (use ice if you need it to cool faster). Combine with the rest of the milk. Shake well.
Let cool in fridge. Shake gently to get the settled cocoa powder mixed in with the milk each time.
Combine dry ingredients in mortar and pestle. Should thicken into a non-fluid paste. Add lime juice to thin (start conservatively, add a little more if needed). Spread on mosquito bites, let dry, leave on for several hours. Avoid brushing dried chunks off until ready to shower or otherwise wash the area.
2021-06-27 I made some more, this time I’m adding:
Freshly ground cloves
Fresh Thai basil
Fresh thyme
Cloves have been shown to have a topical anesthetic property. Thai basil and thyme are additional members of the mint family (as is the Genovese basil).
I am sorry to say we’re out of kale today. But if you are someone who has only ever had fruit smoothies, or who doesn’t like how many carbs there are in a fruit smoothie, or doesn’t like the vegetable water some people pass off as being a green smoothie, this is for you.
This recipe will make about 50 ounces of smoothie. I put mine into three formerly 20 oz. Vitamin Water® bottles: one to drink now, one in the refrigerator to drink later, and one for tomorrow in the freezer. And yes, they are still 20 oz. bottles, thanks for asking.
Ingredients:
1 cup water
1 cup skyr (I used Siggi’s vanilla)
16 oz. frozen fruit mix (I used tropical)
1 romaine lettuce heart
4-6 oz. ginger beer (I used Fever Tree® ginger beer)
Put the water in the blender first, then the skyr.
Blend on low speed for a few seconds. Add the romaine lettuce heart, then 8 oz. of the frozen fruit mix to the blender. If your romaine is like mine, you’ll probably want to cut the bottom off first.
Blend until you don’t see flecks of lettuce roaming around the blender.
You could try the smoothie now, but it will taste like there’s a whole head of romaine in it. So, add the other 8 oz. of frozen fruit mix, and blend again. When I tasted it at this point, it lacked a little something. I considered several herbs and spices for adding flavor, but ultimately (probably because there was some sitting on the counter), I decided to add 4 to 6 ounces of ginger beer.
I thought about adding the whole bottle (in this case almost 7 ounces), but that would have made the smoothie too watery. Since I don’t actually know how much I added, the image to the left will give you a good indication of what was left, hence my estimate of 4-6 ounces.
Blend again for a few seconds to get the ginger beer spread around. Now, find yourself a very large glass, or a few smaller ones, or share with your family and friends! If you decide you like this recipe, it is easily adaptable to other fruit mixes (e.g. you could try a berry mix), other types of lettuce, and other types of yogurt. The one I used isn’t particularly sweet, maybe you want one that is? I’d recommend Greek Gods Honey Vanilla yogurt. It only has a third of the protein, and more than twice the sugar, so it may work better for a young whipper-snapper with high metabolism than an individual who is old, overweight, out of shape, and trying to avoid diabetes (hey, I said respect your elders!).
gives a very useful suggestion to add the eggs last or almost last. Doing so keeps your cheesecake from rising too much while it is baking.
I also ground up some coriander and added it to the crust, along with some cardamom. I modified the filling recipe thusly: add lemon zest, almond flavoring, and rum flavoring.
Now my goal is to modify this post into a single recipe that I can follow, that streamlines the process, so it doesn’t take me FIVE HOURS next time. Note that this can easily be made gluten-free by omitting the crust, and substituting sorghum flour for the wheat flour.
Makes: 3 cheesecakes in pie tins (or glass pie dishes if you have them, but only use one type, as they require different baking temperatures) or 1 cheesecake in a springform pan.
coriander seeds, whole
cardamom seeds, whole
16 graham crackers / crust
1 stick butter / crust
4 T wheat flour (or sorghum flour for GF)
4 T cornstarch
1.5 cups sugar
1 T sugar
1 lemon
zest
1 T lemon juice
1 t vanilla extract
1 t almond extract
1.5 t rum extract
1/4 t cardamom extract (optional)
1/4 t coriander extract (optional)
2 T milk
8 oz. sour cream
32 oz. ricotta
16 oz. cream cheese
4 eggs
Get the cream cheese and butter out of the fridge so they can thaw while you work on the steps before they’re needed.
Grind coriander and cardamom (I prefer to use a mortar and pestle). Divide into three piles: for the crust, the filling, and a garnish on the top of the filling. You’ll want about 1/4 teaspoon for each crust, 1/4 teaspoon for the filling, and less than 1/4 teaspoon should be enough for the garnish. If using pie tins instead of a springform pan, you’ll need three crust piles, one for each crust.
Crush (blend or use a rolling pin) graham crackers (or oreos or whatever, but note that chocolate graham crackers work better than oreos due to the filling of the oreo cookie interfering with the butter’s ability to make the crumbs congeal). If you plan to blend graham crackers, you may want to crush them in the packages first to avoid air gaps in the blender. Also, if using pie tins, depending on how wide and deep they are, you may need fewer graham crackers.
Melt 1 stick of butter per crust. If the butter is thawed, 30 seconds in the microwave should do it; more, and the butter will start splattering. Put one crust pile of coriander and cardamom in the butter. Mix with graham cracker crumbs. Should hold shape when squeezed. Yes, you’ll need the whole stick for one pie-tin worth of crust. Press into pan (3 pie tins, 3 glass pie dishes, or one 9″ spring form round pan). Refrigerate (if doing pie tins, do all three at once).
Mix 4 T flour, 4 T cornstarch, 1.5 cups sugar in a separate bowl. Set aside. We’ll call this the dry goods. You can substitute up to 1/2 cup erythritol for the sugar to get lower net carbs, but any more than that and you risk altering the texture, possibly making it crumbly, and also affecting the taste.
Next we’ll make what I call the seasonings liquid. But before we do, a word about the optional cardamom and coriander extracts is in order. Cardamom extract tends to be very expensive (around $80/oz), because it is imported from India, or it is watered down and so though it won’t be nearly as expensive, you’ll need more and it won’t last as long; so I make my own cardamom with fresh cardamom and vodka. If you choose to make your own, don’t just put the pods in; peel or crack open the pods and put the cardamom, not the pods in. You’ll get a stronger flavor that way, and don’t have to cut the extraction short at two days for fear of getting a bitter flavor, which comes from the pods. Coriander extract doesn’t seem to really exist, except as an herbal supplement, so it either has propylene glycol instead of ethyl alcohol, or it is prepared in a strength that isn’t quite appropriate for baking. So again, I make my own with fresh coriander and vodka. As you can get a stronger flavor by just grinding more and increasing the amount put into the seasonings liquid, I call these optional.
For the seasonings liquid, zest a lemon into a separate bowl. Juice about 1/4 to 1/2 of it, for 1 T of lemon juice, and add it to the lemon zest. Add to this bowl the extracts: almond, rum, vanilla, and if doing the optional, cardamom, and coriander. Feel free to omit any of the flavorings, but it won’t be the same; feel free to use emulsions (shake well before pouring) instead of extracts. Add one pile of ground coriander and cardamom to the mix.
Turn oven on to 350 °F.
In a large bowl, beat sour cream and ricotta cheese together. Add cream cheese and beat. You may be tempted to add the seasonings liquid before the cream cheese. Don’t. It makes it harder to make sure any little lumps introduced by the cream cheese are smoothed out, and you can end up over beating it.
Still in the large bowl, add the seasonings liquid and beat. Add the dry goods and beat. Be sure the mixture is mixed thoroughly. In a separate bowl (you can reuse the seasonings liquid bowl), crack eggs; beat lightly (mix with a fork, as if making french toast for yourself). Add milk and mix in 1 T sugar. Be careful not to beat the eggs too much (over-beating the eggs or adding them too early can lead to the batter rising too fast and cracking). Add this sweetened egg mixture to the large bowl and fold it in. If everything else was well-mixed, it should only need folding in.
Place cookie sheet with edges on the bottom rack. Put a small amount of water in the cookie sheet (about half full) to provide more humidity for the cheesecakes while they bake to help them not crack.
Remove pie tins / cake pan from fridge. Pour batter into crust. Leave a little room (maybe 1/4″) at the top to prevent spills. Sprinkle spice mixture on top of batter. For an extra challenge, you can try putting the cheesecakes into the oven first, and then try to sprinkle the spice mixture in. You only get points for this challenge if you manage to complete it without burning yourself. Use a knife or fork to mix spices in with very top layer of batter.
Set timer for 1 hour. Turn oven down to 325 °F (or if using glass dishes, reduce to 300 °F). Put pie tins / cake pans in oven. If using pie tins, try to cook all three at the same time (when I’m using glass dishes, they have a lip that prevents me from putting all three on the same rack, so I use a pie tin as a platform to elevate one and thus get the lips at different levels). At about 15 minutes, check for uneven distribution of the filling, and rotate any that need it to compensate for an uneven baking surface. If your oven has uneven temperature zones, you may need to swap the positions of the pans after 1/2 hour: rotate them even if they don’t look like they need it; rotate them at 30 minutes, not 45 minutes.
While the cheesecakes are cooking, you can clean up after yourself. Also while they cook, you can make sure there is enough room in the fridge for the pans when they are cool enough to refrigerate.
After 45 minutes of cooking time, check on the cheesecakes. If you used enough water in the cookie sheet, watch out for the steam coming out of the oven. Your face will thank you. If you went away for that 45 minutes and came back knowing you’re about to check if the cheesecake is done, re-read the first three sentences of this paragraph when you get back. Your face will thank you. (If you didn’t use enough water, the sheet will be dry or almost dry, and you risk cracking the tops.) Look for the 2-2.5 inch border of mostly done and the jiggly center, as mentioned in the short video above. If they are not done enough, try cooking and checking in 5-10 minute increments. When they are done enough, turn off the oven, set a timer for 1 hour. Come back and check in an hour. It should either be done, or it needs to cook or stand in the oven longer. At this point, you’ll need to let the pan(s) cool off before refrigerating the cheesecake(s).
Chocolate cookie crust and graham cracker crust cheesecakesGluten-free crustless cheesecake (at an angle that doesn’t let you see the cracks in the top)
I hate the overuse of full stops. to. emphasize. a. point. It won’t be long before the practice is rendered as effective as the adjective “epic”. When everything is epic, nothing is. When everything is important, nothing is. When everything is emphasized… But, after I made the following cornbread for the first time, I decided it was truly the best. cornbread. ever. Cornbread cooling off on my desk at work
Ingredients:
2 Jiffy cornbread muffin mixes (ignore the directions on the box)
1/2 c milk
1/2 c sour cream
1 tsp lemon extract
1 T honey
2 eggs
ground cloves
ground turmeric
ground allspice
Equipment:
Medium to large cast iron pan (8″-10″ diameter or so)
Olive Oil
Directions:
Empty mixes into mixing bowl. Use a fork to break apart large chunks.
Turn on a burner to low heat. Put the cast iron pan on the burner. Add enough olive oil to fully coat the bottom and sides of the pan; allow to warm up while preparing the batter. Warm the honey up (it’s about to get chilled, so plenty warm, even hot, is fine). In a separate bowl, combine the honey and lemon extract; stir. Add the milk, eggs, and sour cream to the lemon-honey mixture. Mix well. Add cloves, turmeric, and allspice to the liquid mixture, to taste (probably 1/2 to 1 tsp each is good). Pour liquid mixture into cornbread mix. Stir well.
Make sure oil coats entire pan. Pour cornbread mixture into pan. Place pan in oven, turn oven on bake at 300° F for about 18 minutes (not preheated). Check with a toothpick. Note that the toothpick could appear to come out clean, but uncooked cornmeal likes to think it is a chameleon, so feel the toothpick for dryness.
Variations:
Start by turning on a burner to low heat. Put the cast iron pan on the burner. Add enough olive oil to fully coat the bottom and sides of the pan; allow to warm up while preparing the batter. Leave on burner until mixture is poured into pan. This will result in taller outside edges.
Take pan out when toothpick appears clean but has moist cornmeal on it, around 12 to 15 minutes. Let the center fall for 3 to 5 minutes. Return to oven and cook until toothpick comes out clean. I call this variation “Cornbread pound cake”.
1 cup skyr (I used Siggi’s vanilla)
olfactory 