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I’ve been making buckeyes and it has inspired me to write about them.

I was born and raised in Ohio (the Buckeye State).  Although buckeye trees are found in other states, they are especially prolific in Ohio.  We had some in our yard.  The nuts are encased in a green pokey hull as they grow:

The hull turns brown, they open up and fall from the trees.  Sometimes they can be found with part or all of their hull.  I liked to collect them as a child.  The nuts are smooth and glossy brown.  I thought they looked like polished wood.  I liked the way they felt in my hands.  I used to love to find the nuts still in their hulls.  I would step on them so they’d pop open.  Some hulls had more than one nut inside. 

You could hammer a nail through them to make necklaces.The actual nuts are not edible in their natural form, but we used to make an edible representation of them from peanut butter and chocolate.  Here are the ones I made:I used a recipe that my sister, Sarah included in a family recipe book.  Although the recipe suggested that you smooth out the peanut butter so that the fork marks don’t show, I decided to leave them in because that’s the way my mom used to make them and it made them seem more authentic to me.

Here’s the recipe:

Buckeyes
4 Tbsp butter
2 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate ( I used Almond bark, but I think chocolate chips would work fine too)
1. Combine all ingredients except chocolate until very well combined (I used my kitchen aide and the mixture looked crumbly when it was well mixed).
2. Form into balls and then refrigerate for 2 hours or more.
3. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and dip the chilled peanut butter balls into the chocolate using toothpicks (or forks) and place on wax paper to harden.

Here are some pictures so you can see the consistency and process of things:My kludged broiler: