Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheeseball

Pin It

When we came back from vacation last week, I had a quick day and a half to prepare for a big birthday weekend.  My dad's birthday was Friday and this past Sunday was my grandma's, David's mom's and my niece's birthday!  Unfortunately, I didn't get to see my niece because she lives a ba-jillion miles away (not really), but I was lucky enough to spend time with the other three birthday kids.

Every year since David and I have met, this weekend has been spent apart.  I always go to celebrate my dad and grandma's birthday with them and he would always drive up to spend the weekend with his mom and help her celebrate.  This year I was able to finagle a gathering where all three were at our house here in Tulsa.  David's parents spent the entire weekend with us and the others came up for a quick day trip on Saturday. 

Because I knew it was going to be a long birthday weekend, I decided to make a couple sweet treats for the lucky birthday crowd.  This post entails one of these delicious treats.  One thing I really wanted to do was make something special for my mother-in-law.  She is a typical motherly person and as such, is always making everyone's favorite dishes except her own.  Heading in to the weekend I knew a couple things...she does NOT like fruit desserts.  In fact, she doesn't really like fruit in general.  What David and his sister both told me was peanut butter and chocolate (dark chocolate, specifically) are her favorites.  So, I had been eyeing a cheeseball recipe in my cookbook for a while and decided this might be the perfect opportunity to try it out.  It's from How Sweet It Is and was entitled Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheeseball...here's the link to the original post. 

I decided to mix it up a bit and put dark chocolate chips in the ball for the benefit of the person I was fixing it for, and I feel that it worked out pretty well.  Also, I would recommend cutting down the amount of graham crackers used, I had a whole ton left over. Below is my amended recipe:

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheeseball
adapted from How Sweet It Is

1-8oz block of cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/2 package graham crackers, crushed

Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, and peanut butter in a bowl and mix together. Fold in chocolate chips. Form into a ball and let set in the refrigerator.

Crush graham crackers in food processor. Remove ball from fridge and roll through graham crackers. Store in fridge until ready to use.

Serve with graham cracker stix and vanilla wafers.

This recipe is quite rich, so it doesn't take much to satisfy your sweet tooth.  I didn't remember to take a picture when I completed the chilling process, but I do have a picture for you after the four of us gnawed on it after supper on Friday night.

Pretty darn good, and this is about half gone.  So, this would probably be the perfect sweet to have out if you're planning on a gathering of around 8-10 people, perhaps a football party?  I served it with vanilla wafers and would definitely recommend doing so if you happen to try this recipe out.