Easy Peanut Clusters

 

You all know my love for all things chocolate. I would eat it every day if there were a magic way for my clothes to still fit.

I’m always looking for new (and RV easy) recipes and recently found this one. It’s only five ingredients and I had three of them on hand, so I simply had to try it. There isn’t any measuring, making it extra simple. The quantities make it easy to cut in half as well. The hardest thing to find was the almond bark. My grocery store didn’t have it, and Amazon wanted $30 for 8 pounds of it. Um, that’s a no. The only place close was Walmart — oh, how I dislike that store. Dislike aside, I needed it and they had it. Mark laughed when I told him where I was going. I know he wanted to take my picture walking in the door.

Let’s get back on track, shall we?

These peanut clusters — boy howdy are they good. And, so darn easy because the slower cooker, such as a Crock-Pot, does all the work! You could do this on the stove, stirring constantly, but with the Crock-Pot you don’t need to. This isn’t a set it and forget it recipe. You will need to stir it three times. I promise you won’t break a sweat.

Start by adding the peanuts, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips into your Crock-Pot. Give it a stir.

Break up the almond bark and place the pieces on top. Cover and set the temp to LOW. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Line cookie sheets with wax paper and get your cookie scoop ready.

At 15-minute intervals, give it a good stir. It’s ready when it stirs easily and no chocolate clumps remain. I played with the low setting, I have two, so mine was done at 45 minutes.

I put the pot on the counter to remove it from the heat and started scooping. Silly me thought three cookie sheets would be enough. I ended up using five cookie sheets for a total of 138 clusters. I love my cookies to be uniform, but these, not so much. Some of them ended up being kind of round and others very oblong, with various shapes in between.

Now comes the hard part, letting them set. Your set time will vary depending on temperature. When I made them, it was a mild day, cool enough to open the windows but still be in shorts, and took close to two hours. I snuck one before they were totally set, and I know Mark snuck several. I really should have moved the cookie sheets to another room and closed the door.

Guess what? You can freeze them for later, making them perfect if you’re having a party. Move them to the refrigerator to thaw and then transfer to your pretty dessert plate. Our friends were my guinea pigs on a recent RZR camping trip. We skipped the pretty plate and just passed the gallon zip-top bag around the campfire.

Click to print recipe

Easy Peanut Clusters

• 2 16-ounce jars dry-roasted peanuts
• 1 12-ounce bag milk chocolate chips
• 1 12-ounce bag semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 12-ounce bag peanut butter chips
• 1 24-ounce container white almond bark, broken up

1. Add peanuts and all chocolate chips into the Crock-Pot and stir.
2. Add white almond bark on top.
3. Set Crock-Pot to low. Set a timer for 15 minutes.
4. At 15-, 30-, and 45-minute marks, give it a good stir. It’s ready when all the chips are melted and it stirs easily.
5. Line cookie sheets with wax paper.
6. Scoop out the mixture with a cookie scoop and place on wax paper. Leave clusters on wax paper until set.
7. To freeze, gather clusters on cookie sheet and freeze for one hour. Store in zip-top bag. Thaw in refrigerator when ready to use.

Meet the Family I’m Maureen Milne, F446881.  Mark and I are becoming empty nest veterans and you know what, we enjoy it!  We are always on the lookout for the next adventure, our friends call us the X-Games family. We are avid hikers, cyclists and skiers (both snow and water).  Mark does triathlons and we run several races a year.  We’ve been RVing together since we were teenagers and we love traveling with our two grown sons.  I share our RV adventures, RV friendly recipes, wonderful campgrounds and more on my blog, M&M Hit The Road.  You can also find our fun on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.