In an earlier post, I wrote about snowballs, a holiday treat my mother would make each year.  Another treat that marks the holidays at my house growing up would be peanut butter balls. If you like Reese’s peanut butter cups, then you’ll like these as well. Rice Krispies add a nice crunch to these chocolate covered delights.

Making this treat is quite simple, however, I couldn’t find a key ingredient, paraffin wax, anywhere in Doha.  In the end, I ordered some from Amazon. I didn’t realize how much I was getting, which was a lot, about two kilograms worth. Now I have enough paraffin wax to make peanut butter balls until well into my 90’s.

When RS saw the wax, she was immediately put off.  She did not like the idea of eating candles. I tried making a set without the wax to appease her, but the chocolate was too thick. So we decided to use the wax again, which made dipping the peanut butter balls much easier.  Once she tried a couple, she got over the wax in the recipe. I was willing to eat them all, but she thought we should share the burden of finishing them off.

Peanut Butter Balls

Ingredients 1 cup smooth peanut butter 1 cup icing sugar 2 cups rice crispies 3 Tbsp butter 15 g paraffin wax 1 bag (227 g) of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream the butter and peanut butter together in a large bowl.  Add the rice crispies and mix well. Gradually mix in the icing sugar. Try rolling a little bit of the mixture into a ball.  If it is too sticky to work with, mix in 2 more Tbsp of icing sugar to make the mixture a little drier.  Roll the mixture into balls and place them on parchment. Next prep the chocolate.

In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate and paraffin wax together over low heat. Using a toothpick, dip each peanut butter ball in the chocolate and coat it completely. Return it to the parchment so the chocolate can cool down and harden.