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Beyond the Equator Seed Butter Recipes

* This is a sponsored post *

With 4 kids, the probability is really high that more than one of them is in a classroom, group, or event with another child who has a peanut allergy. Because we love peanut butter, and my kids really don’t want to give up their favorite peanut butter foods, I’ve tried a LOT of other nut butters and seed butters. Most of these butters have been quickly rejected by my kids. They just don’t taste like what they’re used to. And while I personally love cashew butter, it’s still a nut. And I can have it some places and not others.

So…I was excited and not excited to try a new brand of seed butters. One thing that made me optimistic about Beyond the Equator was that they’re a 5 seed butter. Because, let me tell you, I cannot stand the taste of sunflower seed butter! And I’ve tried at least 10 of them. So, I promise you, it’s not the fault of the person making the butter, it’s the sunflower.

Beyond the Equator sent me their 3 5 Seed Butter Butters. (Say that 5 times fast!). These butters have Chai, Flax, Pumpkin, Sunflower, and Hemp seeds. No nuts. And they come in 3 varieties, Crunchy, Creamy, and Unsweetened.

If you’re eating the butters straight out of the jar, they all have the texture of a natural peanut butter. The unsweetened, I can definitely taste the sunflower seeds in, so I don’t really like it plain. But on a sandwich or in a recipe, it’s perfect.

The Creamy really is the closest to my kid’s favorite peanut butter that I’ve found in a nut butter. And best of all, my kids don’t mind eating it!

The crunchy isn’t quite as sweet as the creamy but still sweeter than the unsweetened. This jar is mine, because my kids don’t like crunchy. Which is fine by me. It tastes great and makes a terrific PB&J – all for me.

Muddy Buddies

One snack my kids are constantly sad they can’t take to events is Muddy Buddies. Because, if you have anyone allergic to nuts, these are basically terrible. So, we took the unsweetened Beyond the Equator 5 Seed Butter and gave it a try.

My kids devoured these just like they do our usual recipe, and we even shared them with guests and no one knew they were made with “special butter” until we told them! My kids are definitely planning to make these again AND take them to share with friends!

Ingredients

8 Cups chex cereal – I prefer the rice chex because they have very little flavor

1 cup chocolate chips – I like milk chocolate

1/2 cup Beyond the Equator 5 Seed Butter – I like the unsweetened

1/4 cup Butter – melted

2 Cups powdered sugar

Directions

  1. Put chocolate, butter, and 5 seed butter in a bowl. Microwave at 15 second increments, stirring between, until everything is melted and mixed together.
  2. Pour 8 cups chex in a bowl. Pour chocolate mixture over chex and stir until all chex are covered in chocolate
  3. Pour 2 cups of powdered sugar over chocolate covered chex and stir until everything is white.
  4. Dump mixture onto a cookie sheet to cool
  5. Try not to eat it all yourself!

Nut Butter Protein Balls

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups oats

3/4 cup Beyond the Equator 5 Seed Butter – if this isn’t enough add a few tablespoons at a time until the mixture is the right consistency

3 Tbst honey or molasses

1/4 cup m&ms

Directions

  1. Pulse oats in a food processor until coarsely ground
  2. Mix oats, seed butter, and honey until well mixed and you can form balls with them. If they aren’t sticky enough, add a little more seed butter. Especially if you’re using the crunchy seed butter, you’ll probably need a little more.
  3. Mix in m&ms or other desired mixin
  4. Form into balls and set out to dry.
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Fudge

I just love Fudge! It’s one of my favorite holiday treats. I make it every year in December. The only thing about fudge, I like chocolate and my husband likes peanut butter. Actually, wait, that’s not a problem. I get to eat all the chocolate fudge myself. Well, this year, I don’t. My 7yr old discovered my fudge and she likes it too. And of course, she prefers the chocolate.

I’ve played with my recipe over the years, and finally found something that I like. It’s easy, virtually fail-proof, and tastes great!

Chocolate Fudge

2 Cups Sugar
2/3 Cups Milk
1 8oz jar marshmallow creme
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips (I used half semi- sweet and half dark chocolate)

1. Grease a 9×9 cake pan with unsalted butter. Set aside.

2. Combine sugar and milk in a pan on the stove. Cook over medium-high heat until mixture reaches 236 degrees F (soft ball stage). Stirring constantly.

3. Remove from heat and stir in marshmallow creme, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips until completely combined.

4. Pour into a greased 9X9 pan and let cool.

Super easy.

fudge

Peanut Butter Fudge

2 Cups Sugar
2/3 Cups Milk
1 8oz jar marshmallow creme
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup peanut butter (I use creamy because no one in my family likes chunks, use chunky if you want the little peanut pieces in your fudge)

1. Grease a 9×9 cake pan with unsalted butter. Set aside.

2. Combine sugar and milk in a pan on the stove. Cook over medium-high heat until mixture reaches 236 degrees F (soft ball stage). Stirring constantly.

3. Remove from heat and stir in marshmallow creme, vanilla extract, and peanut butter until completely combined.

4. Pour into a greased 9X9 pan and let cool.

That was easy, wasn’t it? Actually, it’s the same recipe just with the chocolate and peanut butter swapped out.

Want something a little different? Feel free to add nuts or other non-melting mix-ins to your fudge. Or swap out that 1 cup of peanut butter for something else melty or creamy and see what happens.

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Cookie Dough Brownies

Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Dough Brownies, the title alone is enough to make me hungry! But, really, that’s a long title. I just told my family they were cookie brownies. I put those two words together and it’s guaranteed to get eaten!

This recipe was so easy! I bought cookie dough in a roll from the grocery store but next time I’ll probably just mix up my own batch of chocolate chip cookies and put them in the bottom of the pan. I never have cookie dough on hand, but it’s easy enough to whip up and the kids loved smooshing the dough down into the pan.

Cookie dough, peanut butter cups, and brownie mix, dessert really doesn’t get much better than this. The only downside to this dessert? It’s a bit rich and since it makes a 9X13 I should probably only make it when I’m having a party so I don’t eat it all myself!

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Review of Unreal Candy Unjunked

Received my Unreal Candy BzzKit from Bzz Agent last week. I was pretty skeptical. I mean, candy sweetened with cane sugar and agave sugar, Colored with beet juice (well, some of the chocolate pieces are), and with other healthier things, it was bound to taste different.

It’s definitely not your typical hershey’s chocolate but it is melt in your mouth delicious! And when I say melt in your mouth I do actually mean melt in your mouth. The chocolate is a tad softer than hershey’s so it melts a little creamier. Quite nice, in my opinion.

The chocolate tastes more like a semi-sweet so just don’t expect a milk chocolate. It’s almost halfway between a milk and a dark chocolate. And the agave sugar gives it a bit of a different kind of sweet taste. I wasn’t sure if I liked it at first but after trying several different varieties of the Unjunked candy, I actually like it.

My favorite is the candy bar without nuts (mainly because I don’t really like nuts in my candy bars, there’s nothing wrong with the bar with nuts). It’s a great combination of nougat, caramel, and chocolate. A little heavier than your usual candy bar so plan to be hungry when you start eating it or just eat half.

Next I like the peanut butter cups. Not as well as the candy bars but they aren’t bad. My husband and kids loved them! But, again, I’m not a big chocolate and peanut butter candy person so some of this is my personal preference. My 4 year old actually opened a package herself and ate it all before I realized she had candy.

The chocolate pieces are just ok. The ones with nuts are better, but for the plain chocolate ones, the chocolate just seems a bit bitter to me. I love milk chocolate m&m’s though so comparing the two chocolates the Unjunked chocolate pieces are kind of semi-sweet compared to the milk chocolate. Not terrible, but not my favorite.

In summary, I really like the Unjunked candy bars and I’ll be buying them again – probably as a substitute for granola bars. My husband and kids like the peanut butter cups so I’ll buy those for them. And I probably won’t purchase any more of the chocolate pieces. All in all, the Unreal candy is pretty good and if you’re looking for a healthier candy this is the way to go.

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Recipe for Peanut Butter Pie

I had a couple of people ask me for this so, here’s my recipe for peanut butter pie:

crust
9 graham crackers, coarsely crushed
1/4 C brown sugar
1/4 t salt
1/8 t ground nutmeg (my husband didn’t like the nutmeg in this crust)
6 T melted butter

Filling
8 large egg yolks
12 T sugar, divided
1 1/2 C whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
3/4 C unsalted butter, room temperature
1 C creamy peanut butter
2 T powdered sugar
1/2 t salt

Topping
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate
2 1/2 T unsalted butter
Honeycomb (the recipe for this is in my previous post

Crust: preheat oven to 325. Finely grind crackers, sugar, salt, and nutmeg in a food processor. Transfer crumb mixture to a bowl. Add butter and stir to blend. Pack crumbs onto bottom and sides of a 9″ glass or metal pie pan. Bake until golden brown. About 15 minutes. Let cool.

Filling: Mix yolks and 6 T sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat at high speed until ribbons form, stopping once to scrape down sides of bowl, about 2 minutes.

Combine milk and remaining 6 T sugar in a large saucepan; scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and add bean. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove bean. With mixer running, gradually add hot milk mixture to yolk mixture. Scrape mixture back into pan. Clean bowl. Whisking constantly, bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove pan from heat; whisk vigorously for 1 min. Return custard to mixing bowl; beat on high speed until cool, about 4 min. Mix in butter one T at a time. Add peanut butter, powdered sugar, and salt; beat to blend. Scrape filling into cooled crust; smooth top. Chill until set, 2-3 hrs.

Topping: Stir chocolate and butter in a medium bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth.

Drizzle some of the chocolate glaze over the peanut butter filling, making a circle in the middle of the pie and leaving a 1 – 2 in plain border. Pile pieces of honeycomb on top then drizzle remaining chocolate glaze over.

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Peanut Butter Pie

I tried this pie out over the weekend.

You cook the filling on the stove and let it set in the fridge for a couple of hours. As you can see, mine was still a little bit soft when I took this picture.

But, I loved the pie! It was really rich so you could only eat a small piece, but it was very tasty!

And the honeycomb on top was so easy to make. You mix 1/4 C water, 1T honey, 3T corn syrup, and 1 1/2C sugar in a saucepan until it starts to boil, then you turn the heat up and let it boil, swirling the pot occasionally until the sugar just starts to brown (and don’t wait for it to get a dark brown, I had to make two batches because my first one was too brown and it tasted burnt). At the first tint of brown, remove it from the heat and whisk in 1T baking soda (it will bubble really high so use a large saucepan) immediately pour the whole thing out on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and let it sit for 20 minutes. Then you can break or cut it in pieces and eat. It doesn’t store really well, it tends to get a bit chewy after a couple of days.