Ikea Goodies!

We went to Ikea today, to get a few Christmas presents, some of their adorable wrapping paper and gift bags, as well as some food. Here's a picture of my haul:

















From the left, clockwise:

Elderflower Cordial - I love Elderflower and it's normally so expensive to buy the cordial, so this decent sized bottle at under €3.00 was a steal.

Applecider Vinegar with Lingonberries - I've never actually used applecider vinegar. Does anyone have any ideas what I can do with it? It looked really nice and was only about €1.25 if I remember correctly.

Oat Biscuits & Cappuccino Thins - I've had the spiced orange version of these so I expect they will be just as yummy. The Oat biscuits are gorgeously crumbly and very moreish. They are quite rusk-like and not too sweet, and I tried them with some jam spread on top of them - delish!

Sour Cream and Onion Kettle Crisps - These are vegan despite the "cream" mentioned in the title. They are so good, really crunchy and crispy. I've had the ready salted version of them too, in smaller packets from their canteen.

Filter Coffee - For only €2.00 I couldn't really resist buying some.

Mustard Dressing with Dill - Surprisingly vegan, this is usually served over smoked salmon. I love it so much, it's so tangy and sharp, with a sweet mustardy taste. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, maybe use it as a raw vegetable dip or a salad dressing.

Dark Chocolate - The usual Ikea favourite, I can't not get one at only 45c a bar!

Strawberry Laces - My German friend, if you remember, sent me the toffee version of these and I hadn't seen them in Ikea before, but they were there this time so I decided to try a different flavour.

And below is a Non-Alcoholic Mulled Wine and some Blackcurrant and Raspberry Jam. The wine can be mixed with vodka and served hot with raisins and almonds... can't wait to try this traditional Swedish drink!









































And guess who couldn't stop looking at me as I ate my oatie biscuits with blueberry and raspberry jam??? YES... GERRY. He had a taster and give it the Gerry Seal of Approval (the GSA).

Here he is in his new little Christmas jumper! ^_^
He doesn't look impressed...

Red Quinoa & Chocolate Buttons

I really need to get back on track with my cooking-from-scratch and my experimentation. My time is being sapped by giving Gerry lots of love, affection and walkies. I decided to try cooking red quinoa today with some mixed veg, a little bit of vegan cheese and Aromat seasoning (yes, full of yeasty MSG yumminess but I don't care!) and it was very tasty - the red quinoa has a bit more of a crunchiness than regular white quinoa, and I think I prefer it. Quinoa is a complete protein and great for use in dishes instead of rice as it is more nutritional and tastes even better. Please excuse the steamy photo, as always I just can't wait to get tucked in!

Another thing I've been looking out for in Dublin is white vegan chocolate buttons. I found some and wasn't disappointed, they tasted exactly like Cadbury's Milky Bar buttons and I'd love to make some cookies and cupcakes with them in the future.

Irish-German Vegan Exchange

I don't really know very many vegans in Ireland. I know a couple of vegetarians who occasionally dabble in veganism and raw food, and people who eat healthy organic food, but nobody who is a dedicated vegan. This is why I decided to suggest to my friend in Bremen that we do a little vegan exchange by post, for fun!  I've been to Germany a few times, but I wasn't the most healthy person back then, and I can remember living off takeaway food (pretty much just pointing at something on a chip shop or Chinese menu), bread, and anything basic like beans or pasta that I could buy from local store and cook up at the hostel. So as a result, I've never really had any proper German-specific vegan food.

The package I sent him included a couple of Nakd raw food bars (only really available in the UK and Ireland - I guess I'm to blame for his addiction to them now... sorry about that, man! I'll send you some more if you're good!), a coconut sesame snap bar, a Doves apple and walnut cereal bar, some raspberry liquorice, Nakd cherry flavoured raisins, a minestrone cuppa soup from Lidl, and a cute little strawberry shopping bag from the Asian Market in Dublin.

Now on to the package I received in return. My parcel I sent out seemed VERY inferior in comparison, as the other morning I was awoken by the postman with a HUGE box, with drawings all over the outside, and my treats were all individually wrapped in gift paper and tied up with cute gold ribbons!! Very unexpected, and very cool! It made me feel guilty I hadn't gone to such a huge effort with presentation!

















He sent me 12 lovely vegan treats:

- 2 packets of Coconut Sesame Snaps
- some Energy Balls
- Marzipan
- 2 packets of Soup (Lentil Dhal & Vegetable Pasta)
- Toffee Laces from Ikea
- Dark Chocolate with Praline in the middle
- Hazelnut & White Chocolate Marbled Spread
- a Vanilla & Almond fruit bar
- a Coconut fruit bar
- some Strawberry Lollipops

WOW! That's a lot of stuff! Here are some pictures (yes I opened them in bed, is that such a crime?!):

As you can imagine, I was very excited and wanted to try everything and had NO idea where to begin, as there was so much to choose from! I started with the marzipan balls because I ripped through the packet by accident as I was unwrapping them (that's a good enough reason right?!)... they were delicious, but then I'm addicted to marzipan in a serious way, so that was a sure-fire win! I can't wait til Christmas, so I can get to eat marzipan fruits by the bucketload!

I've also tried the soups. The first, lentil dhal, was really nice. They are very quick to make soups, sort of like a cuppa soup that takes a bit more boiling. You basically pour in 500ml of water over the mixture and bring it to a boil in the pan for a few minutes. The dhal soup had lots of tumeric, curry powder, cumin and coriander in it, so it was really nice. The red lentils made it quite mushy and filling as well. The vegetable pasta soup was fun to eat because the pasta pieces were in the shapes of tiny letters of the alphabet ^_^ I felt like a little kid eating them, but it was so yum! The only thing I'd say about these soups is that they are quite salty (sea salt is listed on the ingredients) so they wouldn't be something to have on too regular a basis. I love salt though, so that's fine by me!

I tried the praline chocolate as well, it was nice and smooth and creamy. I've never come across anything like this before, as we don't seem to have a very exotic choice of vegan chocolate here in Ireland. I love hazelnuts so the filling of this chocolate was right up my street and I had to take a rein check to make sure I didn't devour the whole 100g bar in one sitting!

So being a huge fan of hazelnut chocolate you can bet the chocolate spread went down well too! My friend said that my "tastebuds will explode" when I try it, and they pretty much did! I was only just saying last week how it was disappointing that we can't get a vegan white and hazelnut chocolate spread, I really never knew it existed, so it was a nice surprise to unwrap this treat. I'd also just run out of chocolate spread, so you can imagine how greatful I was to receive it! I had it on a bagel this morning and it was extremely difficult to put it back into the cupboard, because I just wanted more and more... I'm going to try to make it last as long as possible, but I doubt it will even last a week in my house! When it's finished I'm going to take the empty jar to a few health food shops in Dublin and see if they can stock it. The company is from the Netherlands and I'm sure it can't be that difficult to import?

I still have to work my way through quite a few of the products. I'm looking forward to the coconut, date, and nut "Energy Balls" and the other fruity bar. I tried the vanilla and almond one (pictured below) and it was quite dense and naturally sweet like a Nakd bar. I loved it!  We definitely have to do another exchange soon, maybe in a few months' time, nearer Christmas... it was just so amazing to get to try out what other vegans from different parts of the world eat for snacks on a daily basis. So thank you, my lovely friend, for making my tummy very happy these last couple of days! ^_^

Germany is so vegan friendly, especially Berlin, from all the posts I've been reading about the city over at the Vegan Backpacker, and I'd really like to go there next summer for a vacation. However I think I'd have to stay about 3 months to get around to trying out all the lovely cafés and restaurants in the city!

And last but not least, here's a photo of me putting my feet up, relaxing while eating my snacks... I got these shoes yesterday for €4 at a charity shop. They are vegan and are exactly like these Converse boots. THEY ARE AWESOME! I've been wanting a pair like this for so long, so they were a great find :)

I'm Back from the Valleys!

I had a lovely 5 days in Wales and ate so much good food. Dublin airport is pretty vegan-friendly, as a lot of bloggers (such as Vegan Backpacker) have already commented on. The cheapest vegan deal we came across, which was excellent value for money, was the Boots lunch time deal of a drink, snack and sandwich for €3.99. We opted for Fresh's carrot & hummous sandwich, with a vitamin water drink and some pineapple. Other vegan possibilities for food in the airport range from a custom made bagels to snacks from the Nutz stall.

One of the best places I ate in Wales was the Mulberry Bush in Lampeter. This little vegetarian café is at the back of a big wholefood store and has many vegan options at really decent prices. I was always very satisfied after eating here, not just with the taste, but with the quantity of food they piled on the plates! It has a deli type arrangement, like in Dublin's Cornucopia, so you can only really choose from what is on display at the time. We arrived quite late in the day and it's a popular spot to eat, so there wasn't much left. My father and I had a delicious vegan Lasagne, which came with cous cous salad, red cabbage salad and a tofu, olive & cucumber salad. My boyfriend had their butternut squash, tofu and sweet potato Thai Curry, which was very aromatic and tasty (yes I stole some while he wasn't looking!). I decided to take out some vegan Chocolate Torte because I was too full to eat it right away. This had a crunchy biscuit base and the chocolate topping was presumably made with a blend of tofu and was nice and creamy. However, it was a little more bitter than I was expecting, which was rather a disappointment, as I really fancied something sweet.

As you can see, the store itself is huge! I was very impressed by the array of products they stocked and preferred it to any health food shop in Dublin. Their refrigerated and frozen cabinets had a great range of fake meat products that I'd loved to have tried if I was staying longer. I did however pick up two new products - the Provamel Vanilla Soya Yoghurt, and a bar of vegan White Chocolate by Organica. I will definitely be buying these again. The yoghurt had a thick consistency, quite like the Irish made Glenisk gourmet vanilla yoghurts. It was a nice change to come across a soya yoghurt that wasn't too runny or lumpy. My father and the boyfriend both loved it. They also loved the white chocolate, which was pretty spot on! It had the sweetness and texture of dairy white chocolate, and the little black specks of vanilla pod added even more flavour. It was quite expensive though, at £2.99 for a 100g bar, but I just had to try it!

My father catered well for me when I was home. He'd bought lots of food from Marks and Spencers, including falafels, stuffed vine leaves, mixed bean salads, cous cous salads & hummous, and we ate produce from his garden such as cucumbers, sweet orange cherry tomatoes, french beans & baby potatoes. We didn't actually eat very much at home as we went out for quite a few meals. Here are some photos of one of the meals I ate at home: a salad filled onion bagel with caramelized onion relish, giant cous cous & wheatberry salad and a grape & melon fruit salad drizzled with elderflower cordial. It totally slipped my mind to take photos of the other things we ate at his house.

I saw a lot of friends while visiting. One of my friends gave me some green chillies from her greenhouse to take home. I intend to use these in a Thai curry soon. Her little girl showed me their greenhouse and the vegetables they were growing there - she's such a cutie! Their cat was also skulking around looking for some attention.

Another friend we visited went to a great effort to cook a vegetarian meal for us all, which was delicious. I managed to skip on the cheese/dairy in most of the courses, and the Butternut Squash and Carrot Cobbler she cooked for the main course was very fine indeed. I'm going to have to write to her for the recipe and post it on my blog for you all to see. Her dog Tasmin is a real sweetie and likes to carry around a teddy she's had for about 6 years now!

We visited the Mulberry Bush for lunch again the day before we left. This time I had the Butternut Squash & Mango Soup with a brown bread roll and a salad bowl. The salads were lovely - a chinese style one, a homemade vegan coleslaw, a carrot salad, a tofu and olive salad and a bright red vinegary beetroot salad. This was meant to be a small salad, but it was huge... I was so full afterwards that I couldn't possibly even think about buying a take-out dessert!  The soup was one of the nicest I've ever tasted, probably because mango is one of my favourite fruits and squash is one of my favourite vegetables. They are both quite sweet and creamy so they really worked together. My boyfriend had salad with potato wedges, and my dad had the Cashew Nut Risotto with salad. I tasted some and it was indeed very nutty, with a wholesome, earthy flavour.

That evening we went to a restaurant in Aberaeron called The Hive on the Quay. I've been coming to this place since I was tiny, as it is famous for its honey ice cream. Recently though, a friend has taken over the premises and has completely revamped the interior and the menu, and it's now quite a popular place to dine. My father rang ahead of our visit and the staff assured him that there would be vegan options for every course. We met some of my father's friends there and had a very enjoyable evening. I was very well catered for, as promised. I had a salad of chicory, mixed leaves, walnuts and pear for my starter. This was light and fresh, which was ideal seeing as I don't really like feeling too full before the main course has even arrived. It originally would have come with a blue cheese sauce and would have been served as a main, but they adapted this for me for my starter. I think I'd have preferred it if it had come with a different kind of dressing though, to add a bit more flavour. I opted for the (already vegan) vegetable Thai curry with sticky rice for my main dish, which was absolutely gorgeous. I think I drew the long straw with this course, as many of the others were saying that their food seemed far too salty. However, I really couldn't fault the curry. For dessert there was a plethora of sorbets and soya ice creams to choose from. I chose a scoop of strawberry sorbet and a scoop of raspberry soya ice cream. These were heavenly! I have no idea if they were made on site, as their honey ice cream is, so I may email them to find out... I assume they were though, because I imagine getting hold of so many varieties of sorbet and soya ice cream must be quite difficult as I haven't seen so many commercially available in health food shops before. So all in all, it was a very positive experience and I was impressed that a non-vegan specific restaurant could cater so well to my requirements.

While I was visiting, I also tried to cook my father some muffins. I don't know what went wrong - it may have been the baking powder, the muffin tin, the different oven, or the fact that we didn't have digital kitchen scales - but they didn't quite go to plan! After going on to him about how good I was at making muffins my father is never going to let me forget this and they will probably remain engraved on his brain for all eternity now, along with the ketchuppy-pasta concoction I once served him as a student!!

I was really sad to be returning home today. I won't be going home again until Christmas, which will make an interesting blog entry seeing as my father is a wonderful cook and always makes the most amazing Christmas dinners! If I still lived in mid Wales I'd definitely go to the Mulberry Bush on a very regular basis, and am very keen to return, to try out a few well-known vegetarian restaurants in Carmarthen and Aberystwyth.

Bonkers about Baking!

Yes I've gone slightly off the rails with my baking recently, due to having a lot of spare time on my hands. I really had no idea that muffins were so easy to make, and I have fun experimenting with them! They're just so handy to have around as well, for breakfasts (heated up with a bit of jam) and for snacks on the go. Today I randomly made some Banana, Blackberry, Flaxseed & Nutella Muffins, which turned out pretty well. In fact, they were still soft, fluffy and gooey even hours after they came out of the oven, and the boy said they were fantastic! We really couldn't get enough of them. I think I'm going to have to stop making muffins for a while now and wait until next week before I bake any more, I just think I'm becoming addicted to them and keep justifying these indulgent little treats by putting fruit inside them. I'll be getting a 'muffin top' soon if I'm not careful... I think the key to limiting myself to just one a day is to get some larger muffin cases so I can make regular sized muffins like you get in coffee shops, then I think I'll feel more satisfied and won't keep reaching for more!

I can't wait to go see my dad at the end of this month and bake some muffins using the fruit from his garden. He has raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, redcurrants & gooseberries - the poor guy won't know what to do with all the muffins I'm gonna be making for him!!! I'd say warm muffins straight from the oven with some pecan soya ice cream would be a heavenly dessert :)

As you can see, my hamster Pep-Pep loves to nibble on freshly made berry muffins too! Nom nom nom...

Back out West...

The boy, a couple of friends and I went to Galway over the August Bank Holiday weekend. I've been wanting to visit "Food for Thought", a little vegetarian and wholefood café in Galway City, for a while now, so we decided to check it out. Based on Lower Abbeygate Street, Food for Thought is a homely little eatery run by a friendly couple and their food is delicious. The way in which you have to go to the deli counter to order your food before you sit down to eat is similar to Cornucopia in Dublin, where all the main courses are set out in baking dishes on the counter. It's nice to be able to see exactly what you're ordering, but not so advantageous in that you can only really choose from what is available at the time. The guys both had the Vegetarian Lasagne with a mixture of salads, and my friend Katie and I both had the Vegan Shepherd's Pie. I wasn't aware at the time that I could have chosen some salads to go with my pie, but was given a small side salad anyway - I think it was because most of the salads weren't actually vegan and either had a dressing with honey or mayonnaise in them, so they didn't mention it to me. For €6.50 our plates were piled high with food, and it was the cheapest, most satisfying and tasty lunch I've had out in a long time. The shepherds pie had a mashed sweet potato topping, which was far nicer than regular potato, and the inside layers were rich,  tomatoey and filled with soya mince. The café is not strictly vegetarian, as I noticed it has some chicken and tuna dishes on the menu - the only vegan main courses are the shepherds pie and soups, but of course you can also get an array of salads and sandwiches made especially for you. The bread that came with the lasagne was a lovely stodgy homemade bread of a cake-like consistency, which was really filling and flavoursome. Everyone loved the food there, and it was such amazingly good value that if I lived in Galway I'd certainly be a regular customer.

Here's my friend's plate with the salads, although I am unsure whether they were vegan or not: Potato Mustard Salad, Mixed Bean Salad & Celery and Apple Salad.

















Galway also has a milkshake bar in the Eyre Square shopping centre, so we popped along to try it out. I've been here before and was very impressed with the gingernut and peanut butter combo, but this time opted for my favourite biscuit of all time: the pink wafer. IT WAS HEAVENLY - really sweet and creamy. I definitely want to experiment with this at home sometime, although am hesitant to buy a whole pack of pink wafers as I know the packet will be gone in an instant if I get my hands on them! The milkshake bar in Galway is so much cheaper than the bar in Dublin, but is still extortionate when you consider how cheap the shakes would be to make at home. I really cannot justify visiting the Dublin bar very often, especially as the soya shakes come to a euro more than the normal dairy shakes!

A few more discoveries over the weekend included some out-of-this-world Apple & Pomegranate Soya Yoghurt by a company called Sojade. It had lovely little chunks of apple in it and I ate it for breakfast, drizzled over some fresh strawberries. I've really got into my soya yoghurt recently, although all I can really get locally are the Alpro varieties. I particularly like their raspberry and vanilla flavour and wish they did bigger pots.

I also tried some dark chocolate with freeze dried raspberries by Divine. It was nice, but not really my type of thing - I prefer nuts or orange or mint in my chocolate. I picked up a few small Nakd bars as well, as they were so cheap in the health food shop in Gort. The Pecan Pie and the Gingerbread ones are definitely my favourite!

We spent the weekend exploring Coole Park, Yeats' Tower, Galway City & the seafront at Salthill. I loved walking along the beach and finding colourful shells and pebbles to bring home with me.

Blazing Salads

Today I went for lunch at Blazing Salads, which is a little deli on Drury Street in Dublin 2, just down from the rear entrance to George's Street Arcade. Their salads are freshly prepared on the day and although filling a tub can be quite expensive, it is worth every cent. There are several salads available, all of which are vegan:

• Tabouli
• Fruity Red cabbage with orange & apple
• Carrot with toasted almond in a lemon olive oil dressing
• Noodles with spicy/balsamic shoyu dressing
• Dutch white cabbage salad with dulse seaweed
• Tossed mixed leaves, red onion shaved carrot with lemon & mustard
• Chickpeas with carrot, red onion in chilli/lemon dressing
• New potato with pinto bean, radicio in balsamic dressing  
• Energy boosting lentil & barley salad  
• Tomato, avocado, cucumber with fresh oregano, fresh mint & olive oil
• Hummus

Blazing Salads also have a refrigerated section for sandwiches and healthy homemade ready-meals, a deli counter full of samosas, burgers, cakes and biscuits, and always have a few soups on offer. Most of their produce is vegetarian although there are several vegan options and it's definitely worth a visit - I guarantee that everything is so nice you won't be able to choose what to get, so you'll just have to keep on visiting! ;)

Here's a picture of a lovely hot cocoa with soya milk that I had while I relaxed on the streets of Temple Bar, chilling and chatting with friends.

Oh YES Please!

Look what I found in the Asian Market! Peanut Butter and Chocolate flavour Oreos! I assume they are vegan as there's no mention of milk on the ingredients list... then again there's no mention of chocolate or peanut butter :-/ I have come across other varieties of Asian Oreos before which are totally vegan, so I assume that these are as well as they were alongside the vegan cream, strawberry and chocolate flavour ones on the same shelf... if anyone knows otherwise please inform me!

Oh-ts My Goodness!

Now here's something worth blogging about - a healthy superfood breakfast that tastes like dessert!

A lot of people seem to be blogging nowadays about these vegan overnight oats so I thought I'd give it a go from the recipe they have all been using over at Oh She Glows. It's very simple to throw together the evening before, and then you just layer it up in the morning with your desired toppings. I chose to mix in a teaspoon of cinnamon, a layer of blackcurrant purée and a dollop of vegan chocolate spread.

I used:
- 1/3 cup of oats
- 2 tablespoons of chia seeds
- just under 1 cup soya milk
- 1 small mashed banana
- dash of vanilla essence
- blackcurrant purée
- blob of vegan hazelnut chocolate spread

I wasn't sure what it would taste like, as I've never had chia seeds before. They swell up overnight, becoming soft in texture and look rather like tapioca. The mashed banana really adds sweetness without having to add any extra sugar. Next time I am going to try it with peanut butter & chocolate spread. I can just tell I'm going to be having this breakfast quite regularly over the remaining Summer days!

Latest Treat Finds

Just a quick update about a few vegan treats I've found recently.

- Spar's own Hazelnut Chocolate Spread
This stuff is gorgeous and only costs €1.99! Thank you very much Blueberries for drawing my attention to this lovely spread. I've been missing Nutella and Forrero Rocher since going vegan, but now I can just have a spoonful of this amazing stuff to ease my cravings. I have been thinking about putting it on bagels with mashed banana, spreading it on crustless slices of brown bread and rolling it up to make little "swiss roll" snacks, as well as using it in baking or to sandwich two HobNobs together.... mmmmm.


- Tesco Light Choice Cereal Bars 
They are €1.99 and there are about 5 or 6 bars in a box. The chocolate & orange one is vegan, as is the blueberry & cranberry. I think the maple & pecan may also be vegan, I'll have to check again when I go to the shop next. I've tried searching on the Tesco website but I think these are relatively new bars with an improved recipe and I keep finding older products online which are similar but not quite the same. They are very low in calories (around 75-90cals depending on the bar) and make a nice little nibble in between meals.


- Flahavan's Oaty Flapjacks
These come in Original, Chocolate Chip and Cranberry and are Irish Only products as far as I'm aware. There are 6 bars in a box and they are only €2.00 in Supervalu at the moment - can't go wrong with that! Each of the varieties are vegan, but I'm currently having trouble getting hold of the Cranberry and Original flavours again. Cranberry (pictured below) is my favourite, but lately I've only been able to find the Chocolate Chip flapjacks. The chocolate ones are lovely and quite coconutty, they also have more of a crunchy rather than chewy consistency. Definitely one of my favourite shop-bought snacks at the moment.

Temple Bar Food Market

Every Saturday there is a food market in the square outside the Gallery of Photography in Temple bar, with stalls selling hot and cold food such as olives, cheeses, barbecued meat, breads, cakes, Indian snacks, fajitas and burritos, hot dogs and noodle dishes. I went there last weekend and forgot to take a photo, so went back this weekend armed with my camera - and of course it was also a good excuse to buy more food! There is a raw vegan food stall at this market (Natasha's Living Food) selling raw brownies, chocolates, fake cheesecakes made from cashew nut cream, falafels & crackers made with a dehydrator, sprouted hummus dips, etc. It all looks delicious! So here's a photo of some of the goodies on offer...

Disturbingly, one of the stalls sells HORSE SKEWERS. I was really shocked by this, surely nobody wants to eat that here - do they?!?!!

Cat's Aid Vegan Bake Sale

Today I went to a vegan bake sale in Dublin. It was held at Cultivate at The Greenhouse on Andrew's Street as part of the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale. The proceeds went to Cat's Aid, a charity based in Ballsbridge, and the food was lovely! I bought quite a few things and was very impressed. I'd love it if these events could be held more often - next time I'll make sure I bring along something to sell! Below are some pictures, courtesy of some of the organizers.

We bought:

- Lemon Slice (tasted like lemon meringue pie, this was my favourite one!)
- Chocolate Nut Cookie
- Peanut Butter Pastry Roll
- Treacle Nut Brownie
- Banana Cookie with Strawberry Icing

Better than Reese's!

As I was tucking into this final chocolate, it suddenly dawned on me... OMGOSHNOOOO! I haven't taken a picture for the blog!! So here's a picture, of a half eaten chocolate peanut butter cup that I made.

I got tiny little silicone molds from the baking section of Homestore+More, filled the bottom halves of them with molten dark chocolate and squeezed the edges so that the chocolate coated up the sides as well. I let them set in the fridge and then I put a dollop of natural peanut butter in the middle with a whole peanut, before setting them again for a little while and pouring more molten dark chocolate on the top. The result was these nifty little creations. The boy thought they were delicious, but  I (even though I polished them off alarmingly quickly) didn't think they were up to scratch. I should have used a more solid peanut butter. This one (Meridian) was too liquidy and didn't set hard, which I suppose was quite nice in that it had a kind of a similarity to a caramel truffle, the way you bite through a dark chocolate hard shell into the soft filling inside. I really wanted mine to be firmer though, for the more authentic Reeses texture and taste. Next time I will make them even better - but they were lovely all the same!