Super Bowl!

I had been looking forward to throwing the second annual Woodruff Superbowl Party for a long time - it was the light at the end of the tunnel of a long month of studying. I decided to serve Indianapolis vs. New Orleans food - complete with jambalya vs. buffalo chicken mac n' cheese. (I never did find out who won the food bowl - they were both all gone by the end of the night!!!)

I also OBVIOUSLY had to do themed desserts as well, and they were OBVIOUSLY all bite sized. I started off with two kinds of cupcakes - a white cake with blue buttercream frosting and a chocolate cake with yellow cream cheese icing. I'm a sucker for chocolate cake and anything with cream cheese, so you can guess which was my favorite. Plus I got to try out my beginning staged piping skills, which actually turned out better than expected after a momentary panic of not finding the right tip (and the only one I've ever used).

See? Not so bad.

The next thing I made, and my absolute FAVORITE were these mini peanut butter pies with graham cracker crust. I had my first slice of peanut butter pie at a holiday party my parents had when I was little, and have been obsessed ever since. Since I can't make an entire pie because I would eat it myself (in probably 10 minutes), I had been brainstorming how to make these guys mini-sized. I ended up individually forming the crusts into mini-muffin tins, but upon inverting the pan to get them out, I lost a bunch of the ends of the crust. I made the next batch in paper cups, scooped the filling into them with an ice cream scooper, and stuck them in the freezer. The next morning, the paper peeled right off no problem and left most of the crust. I topped these guys with chocolate ganache and managed to get a few onto the plate instead of in my belly :)

Since I had a lot of leftover ganache from the mini PB-pies, I had to whip up something to put underneath it (of course). I found a quick brownie recipe from Hershey's that ended up being great, but not as fudgy as I like. BUT the ganache MADE the brownies and I'm not sure that I'll be able to make another brownie without the rich topping. darn.

Doesn't that look scrumptious??

Hope you all had a great superbowl (if you weren't over here enjoying the above treats) and GO HEELS, who happen to be playing dook right now. (I get too nervous to actually watch the entire game without having something to distract me) Stayed tuned for some Valentine's day sugar cookies!