Fluffernutter Tart and "Bad Teacher"

Who didn't love to open up their brown paper bags at their school cafeteria and find a delicious Fluffernutter sandwich made by mom? It was always my favorite lunch to bring to school and even now the taste of salty peanut butter and sweet marshmallow fluff takes me back to my school lunch days. Now I'm assuming most of us no longer pack a peanut butter and fluff sandwich to work for lunch, at least not near as often as we did as children. So I took a little inspiration from an Ina Garten recipe for Peanut butter and Jelly bars and thought I'd spin the flavors around and use fluff instead of jelly. My "Fluffernutter Tart" is a sweet treat children and adults will go crazy for. Soft peanut butter crust and topping with gooey fluff in the middle, this desert is really good! Since the flavors of our desert will takes us back to school, of course our movie has to as well. Cameron Diaz stars in the outrageous comedy "Bad Teacher"

1 Stick of room temperature butter
¾ cup of granulated Sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of pure Vanilla extract
1 cup of good peanut butter (I prefer Jiff)

1½ cups of All-purpose Flour
½ teas spoon of Baking Powder
¾ teaspoon of Kosher Salt
2 cups of marshmallow fluff 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Start by greasing a 9 inch wide tart pan with a little bit of butter and dusting the pan with flour. Make sure all the ridges in the tart pan are greased well and get a good coating of flour. Bang out any excess and set the tart pan aside. If you don't have a tart pan, a pie plate or a 9x10 baking dish will work just fine. 


In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the stick of butter with the sugar until light and fluffy - about 4 to 5 minutes. Once the butter and sugar have been mixed together, turn your mixer off and add the egg, vanilla, and peanut butter to the mixture and continue to mix on medium speed. With the mixer off, use a rubber scraper to scrap down the sides and the bottom of the bowl to ensure everything is being mixed together.

In a separate mixing bowl - combine the flour, kosher salt, and the baking powder together. Mix the ingredients together with a whisk or a fork. Turn the electric mixer on low and slowly add the flour mixture into the wet ingredients. Mix together just until a dough begins to form. Use your rubber scrapper again to scrap the sides and the bottoms of the bowl and mix in any dry ingredients that might not have been Incorporated into the dough. 

Press about ¾ of the dough into the bottom of the pan to make our crust. Press firmly along the bottoms and the sides to make about a half inch crust. Once the crust is formed, scoop out the marshmallow fluff into the center of the tart. This step is going to be sticky, use a metal spoon and a clean hand to evenly distribute the fluff across the bottom of the tart as best as you can. If you spray your spoon and hand with a little bit of cooking spray it helps to keep the fluff on the tart and off of you. What we have left of our dough is going to be our topping. Distribute the rest of the dough by crumbling it over top the fluff.

Place the tart pan in the oven and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes until the peanut butter dough is turning slightly brown and the fluff is beginning to puff up from the crust. Allow the tart to cool a bit before you remove the sides of the pans. Slices and serve for a desert I really hope will bring out the inner child in you! Now I do have to warn you, this weeks movie is certainly not recommended for our younger audiences but they'll sure enjoy this recipe!

The 2011 comedy "Bad Teacher" stars Cameron Diaz as Elisabeth Halsey, a junior high school teacher who really doesn't give an F - and I don't mean the grade. She isn't just a bad teacher, she is one of the worst teachers imaginable. Elisabeth plans to ditch teaching and let her wealthy husband take care of her the rest of her life, that is until he realizes Elisabeth only stays with him because of his money. With Elisabeth's rich housewife dream up in smoke and no money of her own, she's forced to return back to teaching at John Adams Middle School. Elisabeth's idea of teaching, close the blinds and show her students a movie. Her motive for teaching isn't to inspire her students, but to save up money for breast implants.

When a wealthy, young, and handsome substitute teacher Scott Delecorte (Justin Timberlake) arrives to the school, Elisabeth begins to target Scott's affection. She soon stops showing films and classes and only tries to model herself as a good hearted teacher to impress Scott. Her ways of teaching soon take a turn around when she learns that the teacher who's classroom scores the highest on the state test receives a bonus. Jason Segel, Lucy Punch, Phyllis Smith, and John Michael Higgins co-star in this outrageous comedy.

The humor in bad teacher ranges from harmless to offensive so be prepared to just watch a movie for some laughs and not take things to seriously. For me this movie offered me a bunch of laughs and it's still a favorite of mine to watch after a long hard day when all I want to do is laugh some worries away. To get a glimpse at just how bad she is, check out the trailer for "Bad Teacher".