Peanut Butter Cookies

It’s officially my favorite time of the year–FALL! It’s time the for holidays (here’s looking at you, Halloween and Thanksgiving) and comfort food, so you can bet I’ll be spending the next two months cooking up a storm. Well, four months. Let’s throw winter in there, too, seeing as how fall and winter are a pair.

I’m still on a peanut butter high (yup) and since I really liked the way those peanut butter cups turned out, I decided to make peanut butter cookies. I’ve never been a huge fan of pb cookies, but I thought that adding a bit of powdered sugar–the thing that makes peanut butter cups so delicious–might help with that, and I think I had the right idea. Top these cookies with sugar and chocolate, and all is well.

I think I’ll add orange frosting to the next batch and make them Halloween-themed :)!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups AP flour
• 1/4 cup bread flour
• 2 tsps sugar, for rolling

Directions:

1. Cream butter and sugars in a large mixing bowl on low speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla extract.
3. Add flours, baking powder, baking salt, and salt to butter/sugar mixture. Beat on low speed until well combined, about 1-2 minutes.
4. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 to 48 hours.
5. Shape dough into balls and roll into sugar.
6. Place dough on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake on 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until cookies are a light, golden color. If adding Hershey’s kisses, press kiss into the center of the cookie immediately after removing the cookie from the oven.

Peanut Butter Cups

I’ve been craving peanut butter lately–and I’m always in the mood for chocolate–so I thought I’d play around with my peanut butter cup recipe. I have to say that I like this combination the best so far, and I believe it’s because of the milk chocolate/dark chocolate combination.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4- 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 tbsp(s) melted butter
• 4 ozs of milk chocolate, crushed
• 4 ozs of dark chocolate, crushed
• Sea salt, optional

Directions:

1. Place butter in a small bowl and melt butter in microwave (about 15 – 20 seconds).
2. Add powdered sugar, peanut butter, and salt to melted butter and stir until well combined.
3. Line a baking sheet with 12-13 mini muffin wrappers (the number of wrappers you fill will vary, depending on how much chocolate you eat beforehand).
4. Add crushed milk chocolate and crushed dark chocolate to a small saucepan and melt over low heat, stirring constantly until most of the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat immediately, and continue to stir until remaining chocolate has melted.
5. Add a small amount of chocolate to each muffin wrapper (about 1-1  1/2 tsp of chocolate).
6. Drop a small amount of the peanut butter mixture onto the chocolate in wrappers.
7. Top peanut butter with another 1 – 1 1/2 tsp of chocolate.
8. If desired, sprinkle a dash of sea salt onto peanut butter cups.
9. Refrigerate for at least 30- 45 minutes or until chocolate has hardened.

 

 

Butter

Let’s talk about butter.

No, seriously, let’s talk about butter.

Because I’m Southern.

I’ve been a Land O Lakes girl since the beginning of time, back when my grandma, Peewee, used to make her delicious, moist pound cake (not to mention her buttered potatoes, one of which she gave me every day after school. I’m still working those off, but man do I miss them).

Because I grew up with Land O Lakes–and because everything Peewee ever made was utterly amazing–you can understand my hesitation about sampling new butters. What if my pie’s not as flaky or my biscuit’s not as buttery? Heaven forbid I give someone a treat and they notice something off about the taste.

Well, nevertheless, I found myself in a situation the other day at Target. They had my prized Unsalted Land O Lake butter–at a moderately priced $4.74–but right beside it sat Target brand butter for $3.44. Now, I’m recently graduated and penny-pinching. A savings of even $1.30 means that I can buy an extra chocolate bar to melt for my homemade peanut butter cups. That’s tempting.

I go to Target at least once a week for deli meat and I often do price comparisons between Target and (gulps) Walmart, but I don’t ever recall seeing the Target butter before. But here it was. And over there, 10 aisles deep, was that extra bar of chocolate.

I caved.

I bought the Target butter.

I’ll let you know how it turned out.

Guest Baker – Danni

Today I hung up my apron* for the greater good and served as sous chef for Danni, a friend who stopped by to bake a birthday cake.

Two hours and six games of 2048 later, here’s what she made:

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The cake turned out delicious (believe me, we baked a sample), and what’s really impressive is that 98% of the toffee bars actually made it onto the cake (the same cannot be said for the cream cheese frosting). You can find the Chocolate Toffee-Crunch (Cup)cakes recipe here.

Happy eating!

 

 
* I don’t actually own an apron, but if I did, it would have Batman on it.