Crockpot Peanut Clusters

Okay, this is not going to turn into a recipe blog or one about my cooking adventures, but I am posting a recipe here today for my Facebook friends. Last night I stayed home from my weekly jaunt to Deb's famous Scrap Shack so I could make these peanut clusters to take to a friend's Halloween bonfire. Easy, right? Well, you know there is always a fly hovering in a corner somewhere just waiting to get into your ointment, and last night was no exception.

Richard saw a crockpot he liked last week at Meijers that was on clearance. He didn't buy it then, but when he went to the store on Friday afternoon to pick up the ingredients for the candy, he bought it, so we decided to use it last night for the peanut clusters. About two hours into the cooking time, I smelled what I thought was Richard making some toast. Turns out it was the candy, BURNING! Sure enough, that crockpot was defective, and by the time I smelled it, those peanuts were burnt black! The chocolate was all bubbled up and charred. Talk about nasty. . .

So at 11:00 P.M. last night we made a run into Marion to get more ingredients. We loaded up the OLD crockpot with the stuff and Richard fired it up at five this morning, and at 8:30, I was spooning out mounds of chocolately-peanutty goodness. (Somehow it just isn't as appealing at that hour.) Of course, I had to whine to my friends on Facebook about burning the first batch of candy and having to remake it, which naturally led to people wanting to know what I was talking about. So, that is why I am posting the recipe here. Now if any of my FB friends want the recipe, they'll have to follow the link I'm posting and come here and read my blog to get the recipe. That's kind of a sneaky way to get readers, right?


Crockpot Peanut Clusters
Two 16 0z. Jars of dry-roasted peanuts, one of them SALTED and one UNSALTED
Two 12 oz. bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Two 12 oz. bags of white choc chips or equal amount of almond bark or white dipping coating
One 4-8 oz. bar of sweet German choc.

Layer in crockpot in order given - peanuts MUST be on bottom of crockpot. Do not mix. Cook on LOW for three hours w/o lifting lid. Turn off, mix well, let sit in crockpot for twenty mins. Spoon out in heaping teaspoonfuls onto wax paper-lined cookie sheets. Let set for a few hours in a cool place. Makes about seven dozen peanut clusters. Warning: Addictive! Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

Okay – here are a few things I have found out from making these:
There always seems to be a little too much chocolate left in the bottom w/o enough nuts so you could probably cut down on choc a little or add a few extra nuts.

You can change up the kinds of chocolate you use to suit your tastes or suit what you have on hand.

Don’t lift the crockpot lid while they’re cooking b/c water could run into the chocolate and that ruins chocolate.

I absolutely KNOW putting the chocolate on the bottom will make them burn because one of the teachers I work with did it at school when we made them with kids one year.