Peanut Butter and Jellies

For special occasions, I like to sends friends off from our house with a little something, a goodie bag if you will. Sometimes it’s just a few cookies I baked the day before, or during the holidays, it might be homemade candy. For the dinner party I’ve described all week, I wanted to send our friends off with a little something particularly American, and I remembered this pairing from The French Laundry Cookbook. Fruit jellies served with peanut butter truffles is a charming twist on a classic flavor combination.

This is the first time I am able to say that I prepared something from The French Laundry Cookbook, and it’s kind of exciting to get to say that. Opening that book in the kitchen and actually following the recipes felt a little like cooking from kitchen scripture. I kept the book a good distance from the mess as if it were placed on a pedestal, and I wondered if I should have bowed before measuring out the first ingredient. All jokes aside, this is a really excellent book, and I learned a great deal from reading it alone. To begin this treat, I set about making the jellies. The two suggested flavors are yuzu and concord grape. I searched high and low and did not find yuzu juice in this town of mine, and by comparison concord grape just seemed a bit pedestrian. I decided to make just one flavor, and opted to use acai juice. Next, the suggested apple pectin was as elusive as the yuzu juice, so I used an equal measure of citrus pectin and it seemed to work fine. Keller does note that apple pectin is the key to the jellies delicate texture, so I’ll try harder to procure it next time. For the truffles, I used El Rey milk chocolate and organic, freshly ground peanut butter. Once the truffles are formed, they are then dipped not once, but twice in melted chocolate which can be either milk or bittersweet. I found a 53% cacao El Rey which is somewhere in between and used that.

So for jellies, a combination of juice, sugar, and corn syrup was simmered and skimmed. Pectin was combined with more sugar and dissolved with some of the simmering liquid. All was returned to a pot to simmer a bit longer, and then it was poured into a pan and left to set. The truffle filling was made by blending peanut butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Melted milk chocolate was added and then some softened butter, and they were blended into the mixture. This was then refrigerated until firm. I formed the truffles by using a melon baller, and then they were chilled. More chocolate was melted, and the truffles were dipped once, allowed to set, and then dipped a second time. For presentation, the truffles were dusted with cocoa powder.

For me, the truffles were like the best Reese’s peanut butter cups ever made. The jellies were delicious, albeit sticky due to our humidity, and the combination of the two was fun and cute and a good food pun. The truffles were far and away the better half of the duo, but I will definitely make this again with both parts.