I’m back at work after almost two weeks in England and trying to get caught up. That has meant long days and I’ve just been too tired to do much cooking. Thankfully Bob is good with take out for weeks like this. But that still leaves the snack food and dessert that I crave. Yes, I could be healthier and forgo sweets, but it’s just not in my nature; and, if I have a little when I want it I don’t overdue it like I do if I totally deprive myself (example of the great cake eating incident of 1998).

First up for snacks was caramel corn. This one came about because it turned out I didn’t have much of anything in the house (including flour) so baking was difficult. I used my favorite caramel corn recipe as the basic idea here. I don’t have a candy thermometer but I do pretty well eyeballing the caramel portion of this. Bill and Bob call is crack corn because, in all honesty, it is addictive and no matter how much I make – half a recipe here, double recipe other time – it all goes in one sitting. While excellent at room temperature, it is amazing warm.

Also on the plate this week was chocolate peanut shortbread. This is almost as good as the caramel corn. I think the trick to making this better is using a basic shortbread instead of a peanut shortbread. Might just be a little too much peanut taste for me. But the shortbread is pretty easy to make – it starts out like this …

then goes in the pan like this

and comes out of the oven like this

.

All well and good, but then you make it fantastic with some nice chopped bittersweet chocolate

Then comes the tricky part – the caramel.

It was looking pretty good until I stirred it. Then it went to this.

So I started over and actually followed the instructions about not stirring and we made it to this:

which turned into real caramel sauce after adding the vanilla and cream.

The dessert – still have to come up with a shorter name for it – is really pretty in the pan.

And sliced into small pieces you can see the layers better.

This may not have been the most interesting week for cooking, but it is one of the tastiest. Next week is not looking so good for cooking either – three back to school nights – so next weekend may be more desserts and snacks.