A Riff in Snicker-ish Dates

 A friend gave me some medjool dates recently, so I decided to make a version of the date 'Snickers' that there are a gazillion videos/recipes for. But I changed some things. Most of the recipes I've seen have you stuff the dates with peanut butter and cover with chocolate. But we use peanut butter that is just peanuts and is very runny. The bottom of the bucket is a bit more firm but I was opening a new bucket so it was very loose. It would've been quite a mess to try to stuff the dates with that. Then there's the chocolate. I was using dark chocolate so I knew that when it hardened, it would be very hard indeed. So I made these in such a way that those issues were avoided. I pitted the dates, placed them on a plate, and put a few walnut pieces in each one before closing them up. I melted dark chocolate and mixed in some peanut butter, which keeps the dark chocolate from getting too hard as it cools. I covered each date with the chocolate peanut butter mixture and placed in a baking paper lined container, since they were sticking to the plate. And here they are:

photo by Bill Burke

They are so good! I love them. I think I showed great willpower in stopping after tasting just the one for quality control purposes. I don't think they'll last very long.

By the way, the melted chocolate with peanut butter mixed in makes an excellent fudge-like confectionary (the runny peanut butter is excellent for this). I melt the chocolate, stir in the peanut butter, and spread the mixture in a paper-lined container. When it's cooled, it's easy to cut. It's also excellent with walnuts mixed in. I suspect coconut would be pretty great too. Just sayin'.

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