Monster Eyeballs

The best choice for my sweet, Halloween confectionery treat was Monster Eyeballs. These eyeballs are simple peanut butter truffles covered in chocolate and made to look like eyeballs using M&M candies. Simple, yet uniquely creative.

I specifically chose to use real peanut butter as an ingredient. I have an obsession with Smuckers Natural peanut butter. It comes in creamy, creamy with honey and super chunky. All three of them contain only peanuts and is splendid on toast, bagels and traditional PB&J. I occasionally eat it with a spoon directly from the jar. I expected the peanut butter to make the truffles a high quality treat.

I was pleased by the simplicity in making the eyeballs. I mixed the peanut butter, butter and powdered sugar (confectioners' sugar) in a mixing bowl. I was surprised by the amount of sugar this particular recipe called for (4 cups). The mixing can be done with your hands, but I used a hand blender because I thought it would make the truffles smoother. It actually didn't make much of a difference in the end, though. After mixing, I hand-rolled golf ball sized balls and placed them on parchment paper. Next time, I will make each ball smaller to increase the number of eyeballs. Once I emptied the entire bowl, I refrigerated the eyeballs for an hour.

When each eyeball was firmly together, I took them out of the refrigerator and dipped them in chocolate. I used an entire bag of semi-sweet morsels and 2 tablespoons of vegetable shortening and, together, microwaved them for 60 seconds. There is a very fine line to melting chocolate. If you heat it too long, it will cook and become very stiff. If done properly, the morsels look like they did before they were heated. However, once you begin mixing them, they melt into a very smooth chocolate dip.

Using a skewer stick, I dipped each eyeball into the chocolate, leaving a small amount of the peanut butter exposed/uncovered as an oval representing the cornea. I covered each eyeball with the chocolate and put them in the refrigerator again. With the excess chocolate, I covered a handful of leftover pretzels. Finally, I placed M&M's in the middle of the cornea that became the iris.

It was a fun and festive treat.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups Smuckers Natural creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
1 (1-pound) package confectioners’ sugar (about 4 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
1 (3-ounce) package M&Ms