The baking exchange: chocolate peanut butter haystacks!

Nothing shouts "Christmas is coming!"  to me more than our Church's Ladies Christmas breakfast; that was yesterday.  Today we woke up to a blanket of snow on the ground and it felt like the perfect time to make my bake goods for the baking exchange I'm attending this week.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Haystacks seemed like the perfect choice; I got my selection in first as there cannot be any duplicates!  Not only are these little nests tasty; they are the simplest recipe consisting of 4 yummy ingredients. 

Chow mien noodles, chocolate, peanut butter and peanuts!

I called my mom to get the recipe; however she couldn't find it to so I searched the web.  I couldn't find anything exact; but this gave me a point of reference.

These are the measurements I ended up with:

4 cups of semi sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

4 cups of crushed chow mien noodles

2 cups of salted peanuts

Aubrey won this apron at the breakfast yesterday!  We were definitely feeling the Christmas spirit....even at 7:30am!

We crushed the noodles!

Separately we measured the chocolate chips and added the peanut butter to this. 

Put this in the microwave; set it for 1 minute (you don't want this to burn; you may have to gage how hot your microwave gets)

While this is melting; in a large bowl Aubrey poured in the crushed chow mien noodles.

To this she added the peanuts.

I had her stir this up so the peanuts are incorporated well!

This is what the chocolate peanut butter mixture looked like after 1 minute in the microwave.  I stirred this well and put it back in the microwave for an additional minute. 

This is what the chocolate mixture looked after the second minute in the microwave.  I stirred this again and put it on for a final minute.

After three minutes total in the microwave; the mixture was smooth after a quick stir.  We poured this over the peanut chow mien noodles mixture and stirred it until everything was chocolate coated.

We lined our table with parchment paper and used two large spoons to drop the haystacks.

Each recipe made about 30-40 haystacks.  We let them sit for about 4 hours.

I made 4 batches of this within an hour and a half....like I said SIMPLE!!!!

After about 4 hours sitting at room temperature (in my cool front room...you wouldn't want the environment to be too hot or they may not set properly) they were ready to be packed up.  These freeze very well; my freezer is packed for the baking exchange this Saturday!

After this we headed to church; just had to show off Aubrey's new hat!  My mom bought it from one of the lady's in the church office...too cute!