Gourmet Peanut Butter & Jelly 7.03 Lorelai's First Cotillion
“Is that peanut butter and jelly?” “Yes. I just thought since the girls were only 10 that they'd enjoy it more than the smoked-salmon sandwiches.” “They're 10. They're not animals. This is a proper tea, Sookie. I'm not interested in circus food.” “Stings doesn’t it?”
Ingredients:
For the sandwich bread:
(If you’ve been following me for a while, you know bread is not my strong suit, so I followed the Flavor Bender’s recipe).
2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast
1 ½ cups lukewarm water
3 tbsp granulated sugar
4 ⅓ cups of all-purpose flour
½ cup lukewarm water
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
For the peanut butter:
1 ½ cups dry roasted, salted peanuts
½ tbsp vegetable oil*
*You may not need the oil
For the grape jelly:
2 cups black or red grapes
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 ¼ tsp unflavored gelatin powder
1 ½ tbsp lukewarm water
Directions:
For the sandwich bread:
Add 1 cup of the lukewarm water to a small bowl and add the yeast and 1 tbsp of sugar. Stir gently to combine.
Allow the yeast to sit for about 15 minutes until frothy bubbles form.
In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, remaining ½ cup water, salt, and melted butter. Then add the yeast mixture. Using a dough hook (or your hands if you don’t have one), mix the dough until a smooth ball forms.
Knead the dough for about 15 minutes with the dough hook on speed 3 if you have an eclectic mixer or for 20 minutes if you’re kneading by hand. The dough should be elastic by this point.
Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl and cover with a tea towel to rise for 1 hour to double in size.
Grease a loaf tin while the dough rises.
Remove the dough from the bowl and shape into a rectangle shape the same size as the loaf tin. Place the dough in the tin and cover again with a towel.
Allow to rise again for another hour for a final proof.
During the last 30 minutes of the proof, preheat your oven to 375 degrees F so it can be nice and warm for your dough.
Bake the bread at 375 F for 45 minutes.
Allow the bread to cool for about 10 minutes before removing from loaf tin, but allow to completely cool before using for the sandwich.
For the peanut butter:
Add 1 cup* of the peanuts to a food processor and blend until smooth.
If you notice that the peanut butter is too powdery and does not resemble peanut butter, you can add up to ½ tbsp of vegetable oil.
If you want crunchy peanut butter, roughly chop the remaining ½ cup of peanuts and stir into the peanut butter. *If you prefer smooth peanut butter, add the ½ cup at the beginning.
For the grape jelly:
Add the grapes, sugar, and lemon juice to a medium-sized saucepan over high heat and stir gently to combine. Allow to reach a boil, then lower the heat to medium.
Simmer the grape mixture over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Pour the grape mixture into a blender or use an immersion blender if you have one and blend until almost smooth.
Pour the lukewarm water into a small bowl and add the gelatin. Use a spoon to gently stir to make sure all the powder submerges into the water, but don’t stir too much. Allow to set for about 5 minutes.
Stir the gelatin into the grape mixture until fully combined. Allow to completely cool before covering and placing in the fridge to firm up for at least 4 hours.
To assemble:
Using a serrated knife, cut two slices of bread from the cooled loaf. Spread an even layer of peanut butter on one slice of bread and a layer of jelly on the other slice of bread, then sandwich together.
This was a fun dish to put together! I knew if Sookie was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she wouldn’t just slap some store-bought peanut butter and jelly on bread, and call it a day. I really enjoyed making my own bread (my house smelled amazing!), peanut butter, and jelly. I know these were technically little tea sandwiches, so she would have probably cut them smaller, but I was too impatient to dig in right away!
Happy cooking from the Hollow!
If you missed what I made last episode, catch up here!
