Peanut Butter and Caramel Smores

As I’ve said before, I find blogging events useful when I’m looking for inspiration. Sometimes the theme alone is enough to get me thinking in different directions. Although whether or not those different directions actually make sense is another matter entirely. When I found out The Peanut Butter Boy is hosting The Great Peanut Butter Exhibition #5 and the theme is sandwiches I immediately had an idea of what to make. It was like a cartoon light bulb went on above my head. For some reason all I could think of was a peanut butter, apple and cheddar panini. It’s not completely out of left field though, there’s a logical train of thought that brought me to that idea. It went something likes this: I like granny smith apples with peanut butter. I like apple pie with cheddar cheese. I keep seeing paninis on all the blogs and don’t use my panini maker nearly enough. Therefore, if apples are good with both peanut putter and cheddar cheese, all three should also be good together. And what better way to put them together than in a panini? Once I had the thought, I knew the only way to get it out of my head was to actually make this concoction.

When I went to get my panini maker out of the cupboard it had the waffle plates on as opposed to the panini plates and I decided that a waffle shaped sandwich was the way to go. I then built my sandwich on homemade bread, with a thick layer of peanut butter, thin slices of granny smith apples and smoked applewood cheddar cheese. I squished the whole thing into the panini/waffle maker and waited for it to do its thing. The result? Ah… it was ok. It seemed like pure genius in my head but once it was on the plate I just wanted to deconstruct it into apple slices smeared with peanut butter and a grilled cheese sandwich. The sum was not greater than its parts. Sigh.

But I couldn’t submit a less than stellar sandwich to the Peanut Butter Boy so something else had to be made. It was about at that time that I reverted back to my love of desserts for inspiration. I had some caramel sauce in the fridge, leftover from making apple strudel and I knew there were graham crackers in the cupboard, leftover from making cheesecake and before you knew it I had built a peanut butter and caramel smore. Now that’s a sandwich to be proud of! As if smores weren’t already good with layers of graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate, I jacked them up with caramel sauce and peanut butter too! The only problem is that I now believe that all smores should be made like that… After you try it my way you’ll be a believer too.