Peanut Butter Again? Yes! Cookies on Steroids.

October 10, 2011 at 9:15 am | Posted in Cookies, Dessert, Gluten Free, Secret Recipe Club | 56 Comments
Tags: chocolate chips, cinnamon, Cookies, Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies, Peanut Butter, Peanut Butter Cream, Sandwich cookies

I just realized something, this is my third post in less than two weeks.  It’s a very unfamiliar feeling – since I usually only post about twice a month, give or take a little. There have been two new blog challenges that I simply couldn’t resist, the Love Bloghop and the Secret Recipe Club, which is part of the reason.  The latter is the focus today.  Ack, what a dull beginning to this post!

First off, I’m sick.  I caught a bug last week, and it’s worsened.   I was hoping it would be one of those quick 2 1o 3 day deals, but no such luck – come Friday I was feeling completely lousy. The slight upside was, fasting for Yom Kippur, on Saturday, was a cinch. The downside, I couldn’t eat a bit of a beautifully prepared Yom Kippur dinner – couldn’t even be near the table since the smell of food was enough to start the nauseous sweats.  Have you seen the dress fitting/food poisoning scene in Bridesmaids? Sexy, huh?

OK, enough about my sickness (and I won’t mention that looking at these photos, as I put this post together, is making queasy again – oops.).  For this month’s Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the blog, Sweetie Petitti .  I know Susie from back in the day when she participated in the Daring Bakers.  Last month, I was happy to see she was a member of the Secret Recipe Club.

That said, when I was assigned her blog, I wasn’t surprised.  If you factor weird ju-ju into situations, you can turn them into an equations.  Haven’t seen Susie in ages + joined the SRC + See Susie = Her blog is mine this month!  Kind of like the peanut butter appearing on my doorstep last week.  OK, I won’t make an equation out of that.

Bear with me, I have a fever..things may not seem as they should.

Having rambled about all that, love Susie’s blog.  She decorates a mean cookie – I don’t, so that was out of the question.  I had a hard time choosing between 4 recipes.  1) Her pumpkin bread, which I was going to make into a bundt with swirls of cream cheese and Nutella. 2) A Spicy Buccatini with Rapini, Pancetta and Clams, which I was going to call Spicy BOOcatini, in honor of Halloween, although the name was about all Halloween it was going to be.  How do you make a yummy pasta dish scary?.  3) A Mile-High chocolate cake – but then I started feeling run down, a preface of what was to come, soo..I decided to go with something a little more simple, and pump it up a bit –  4) Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies. Would you believe, me, a self -confessed/obsessed peanut butter freak, has never had a flourless peanut butter cookie?

They’re great as is, but I couldn’t resist sandwiching them with the Bouchon Bakery’s peanut butter cream from their famous Nutter Butter cookie.  I added cinnamon to it for a little kick of warm spice, but that’s it.  I kept Susie’s recipe as is, except to make bigger dough balls, therefore, less cookies.  Next time I’m going to make the balls smaller, like maybe a scant tablespoon, because it is a bit much ‘cookie’ for a cookie sandwich – it needs to be thinner. But hey – if you like a lot of cookie, in ratio to the cream, why not?

These are heavy in weight, super rich, and pretty darn good.  They’re also kind of delicate with all that cream, so if it falls apart while you’re eating it, just put it on a plate and use a fork ;D.

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Peanut Butter Cinnamon Cream

Cookies
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips

Peanut Butter – Cinnamon Cream Filling
Recipe from the Bouchon Bakery (I added cinnamon)
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 2/3 cups confectioners’ sugar ( I used 1 1/3 cup)

Melted chocolate or caramel, (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix first 6 ingredients in a bowl. Stir in chocolate chips. Roll heaping tablespoons (or a scant tablespoon for thinner cookies) of dough for each cookie into ball.

2. Arrange on a large (I used a 12 by 17 half sheet pan), parchment lined baking sheet – 2 inches apart. You should have 16 dough balls (more if using scant tablespoon). Use the bottom of a glass to flatten each dough ball.

3. Bake cookies about 10 – 12 minutes. Cool on sheets 5 minutes. Transfer to racks; cool completely.

4. Beat together cream filling ingredients until smooth, then scoop into a pastry bag with a plain tip or a zip-lock bag.

4. Using the pastry bag with a plain tip, or the zip-lock bag with the end snipped off, pipe cream filling evenly on to 8 cookies.  Drizzle with melted chocolate or caramel, if desired.  Top with remaining 8 cookies.

This recipe makes 8 sandwich cookies.  You can double it for 16 sandwich cookies. You might have some cream filling leftover ( i overfilled each one, so not much left over), so double the recipe or umm, eat it with a spoon, like I did.

Be sure to check out Susie’s blog when you get a chance.  She really is a sweetie!  Don’t forget to click on the blue frog below to see a ton of mouth-watering SRC creations!