Last week as I was quickly stirring up these Butterscotch Bars to bake and take to a homeschool event, I started counting up the ingredients.  Five!  Five ingredients!  Yay!  Another High Five Recipe!

I am so excited that these bars taste so good using sucanat and whole wheat.  I had made them years ago using brown sugar and white flour and love that you can’t even tell a difference using the healthier ingredients!

Better yet, these bars can be stirred up and thrown into the oven in just a few minutes.  It doesn’t get much better than that! 

Easy Butterscotch Bars

1 cup melted butter
1 3/4 cups sucanat
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

Stir melted butter and sucanat together.  Add eggs and vanilla, mixing well.  Stir in flour and mix until well combined.  Pour batter into a 9×13 inch baking pan.  Bake at 350° for 25 minutes.

These bars are gooey, rich and better made not very often because I like them waaaayyyy too much. 

Way too much.
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Be sure to join us for The little Green Project next week!  Read about it here!
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This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday, being hosted today by Rocks in my Dryer.

I have always loved the idea of making truffles, yet it always seemed so daunting to me.  Truffles sound so…gourmet or something.  I finally decided that this year for Valentine’s Day I was going to give truffles a try.

I learned that not only are truffles easy to make…they are quite an inexpensive Valentine’s Day treat.  Do you KNOW how much truffles cost at the store?  Yeah, a lot more than homemade ones.   Not only are the homemade truffles less expensive, these treats don’t have high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils in them!

This first recipe is SO easy to make!  Try this one first if you want to prove to yourself that you can make truffles.

Peanut Butter Truffles

2 cups milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 T. butter
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (I used homemade peanut butter)
1/4 cup organic, unbleached powdered sugar (optional)

In a saucepan stir together chocolate chips, cream and butter over medium heat. 

About the time the chocolate chips are almost melted,
add peanut butter and stir until smooth.

Spread mixture into a pie pan and chill for about two hours.

Lick the pan while you wait for truffles to chill because…
well…do I actually need to give you a reason?

Roll mixture into 1 inch balls. 
Dip in unbleached powdered sugar. 
Place on parchment paper and chill until set.

This next truffle recipe takes a little more time to make, but it is SO WORTH IT. 

Chocolate Caramel Truffles

1 cup sugar (I used sucanat)
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup chocolate chips (milk chocolate or semi-sweet)
1 t. vanilla extract
1/4 t. sea salt

In a saucepan, cook and melt sugar, stirring with a fork. 
It will clump up at first while it melts, but it will melt if you keep stirring and heating.
(Trust me, use a fork.  A spoon doesn’t work.)

Remove melted sugar from heat and stir in cream.  
Pouring in the cream will immediately create a crazy big blob thing of caramel,
so take it back to the stove and heat and stir until it melts. 
It will seem to take forever but don’t worry,
it really will melt eventually (about 15 minutes).

See, it finally melted.  Now you have caramel.

Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips, vanilla and salt. 
Pour mixture into a pie pan and chill for about two hours.

Roll mixture into 1 inch balls and chill on parchment paper until set. 
You can dip your truffles in a bit of cocoa powder if you want them to look pretty.  They look pretty without the cocoa though, because hello?  Chocolate and caramel all rolled into a ball?  How could that not be pretty?

Place your truffles into little Valentine muffin papers and you’re all set!

I will present these truffles to Matt on Valentine’s Day, at which time we will have a conversation about whether caramel is pronounced Kare-uh-mel or Car-ml.  He will say that he is pretty sure that it is Kare-uh-mel because there’s an “a” in the middle, and I will just sit there eating his truffles.

How do you say caramel, by the way? 

(It may seem like Matt and I argue over word pronunciation often, but really we don’t.  Just KYOOPON vs. KOOPON and the occasional Kare-a-mel vs. Car-ml.  And if those two marital issues are among our biggest, I’d say we’ll have a pretty great Valentine’s day.)
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This post is linked to Frugal Friday and Finer Things Friday.