PEANUT MUDDY BUDDIES

Life sometimes assumes the form of a weird tragicomedy in multiple acts, one of those ones where the characters are impeccably dressed but wear funny shoes and constantly use puns and say the word amazing one time too many and compliment each other’s hair (not yours).

In cases like this, it may happen that you more or less suddenly just lose the plot.

Whether this is irreversible or not, it’s too early to say; but warning signs in no particular order include having three-and-a-half-hour motion graphics tutorials on Thursday nights to learn how to bring into existence videos of hand-drawn badgers performing an eternal dance on the screen of an anachronistic Victorian cinema, saving them as looping GIFs named ‘badgerLove5’ (it did take 5 attempts. After Effects wouldn’t accept the fact that it had to be forever), and finally publishing them on a vegan baking blog because it makes perfect sense to feature a dancing badger called James side by side with ninety-one respectable recipes of egg-and-dairy-free cake (fine, no honey either); also going food shopping for the week and coming back with two monster jars of peanut butter, a pack of gum and a box of cereal; and spending sunny Saturday afternoons handcrafting heart-shaped peanut butter chips from cocoa butter because who gives a duck about having a pool.

But then again, when the aforementioned jars of peanut butter and the aforementioned box of cereal and last but not least the homemade peanut butter chips with an embarrassing shape are finally put to good use (on a sunny Sunday afternoon) and they turn into some badass nutty Muddy Buddies, you just end up munching on them peacefully sitting on your sofa and secretly imagine their name being pronounced condescendingly with an upper middle class accent, and you also come to the conclusion that after all you don’t really mind having lost the plot, if this means that you get to write your own new one, where at this one unforeseen point in the story two people wake to find each other on the very same page.

PEANUT MUDDY BUDDIES

Peanut butter chips:

250g (1 cup) natural peanut butter

30g (1/4 cup) icing sugar

80ml (1/3 cup) melted cocoa butter

Muddy buddies:

360g (8 cups) Shreddies-type cereal

130g (1 cup) salted peanuts

125g (1/2 cup) natural peanut butter

150g (1 cup) dark chocolate chips

55g (1/4 cup) margarine

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

180g (1 ½ cups) icing sugar

peanut butter chips

Start by making the peanut butter chips. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl until combined, then pour the mixture onto a sheet of parchment paper. Place in the freezer for about an hour or until solid enough to cut out (heart) shapes. Put back in the freezer for another hour or until completely solid.

For the Muddy Buddies, combine cereal and peanuts in a very large freezer bag and set aside. Melt chocolate chips, peanut butter and margarine over low heat, add the vanilla extract and stir until well combined. Pour into the plastic bag then shake well until the cereal mixture is as evenly coated as possible. Immediately pour in the icing sugar and shake again until everything is coated. Spread on a sheet of parchment paper to cool, mix in the peanut butter chips then serve.