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 wordamazing 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 beforever),
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.
