Raise your hand if you like chocolate and peanut butter. That's what I thought, most of you do! I was lurking around Pioneer Woman's site in honor of cookie week and happened upon these delights. They are a creamy, oh so delicious peanut butter filling sandwiched between two chocolate cookies. What's not to love?
The cookies are so quick to make, they take a little help from a box of cake mix. The cook time for the cookies is only 10 minutes and the filling comes together in a snap. If you are looking for a tasty treat to make at the last minute, add these to your list!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
from: The Tasty Kitchen
Ingredients:
COOKIE:
2 Eggs
½ cup Vegetable Oil
¼ cup All-purpose Flour
1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix
Filling:
4 ounces Cream Cheese, softened
¾ cup Smooth Peanut Butter
1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
2-½ cups Powdered Sugar
3 Tablespoons Milk
For the cookies:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly whisk eggs and oil in a medium bowl. Mix in flour and cake mix until well blended. Roll into 1 inch balls and bake for 8-10 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet. Cool completely on a wire rack.
For the filling:
In a bowl cream together cream cheese, peanut butter and vanilla. Add in powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Add in milk a little at a time until you get the desired consistency.
Spread about 2 Tablespoons of frosting onto the bottom of one cookie and then place another cookie on top. Repeat with remaining cookies. Enjoy!
The next time that I make these (oh there will so be a next time, maybe as soon as this batch is gone and maybe with a mint filling), I will flatten the cookies a little before they go in the oven. I like to use a cookie scoop, but sometimes cookies retain too much of that ball shape and don't flatten out. That happened here, so my sandwich cookies looked a little more round than they should have. They still tasted great though and that counts for something.
The recipe says it makes 16 servings, but we all know that I never get that many. I was able to get about 14 sandwiches and a lot of leftover filling. I'm thinking of making a batch of brownies and putting the filling on top and then a layer of melted chocolate over that. Does that sound fantastic or what? Stay tuned for that experiment!
Oh and make sure you have a big glass of milk nearby, these cookies require it!
Can you believe we only have two more weeks of cookie posts? That means Christmas is right around the corner, hooray!
Week 10 Twelve Weeks of Christmas:
So if you haven't noticed we have a "sweets" problem in our house. I love trying out new recipes and I've always got a willing taste tester, sometimes two. I cranked out quite a few dozen cookies last weekend for our church's service project and managed to end up with a few to munch on. Our favorite recipe of the weekend was this one that I had tucked away from an old HEB advertisement. It's meant to have mint chocolate chips, but I substituted Peanut Butter chips...a mighty fine substitution if I don't say so myself.
Double Chocolate Cookies
Recipe from HEB Ad from sometime in the 2000's :)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 2/3 cup (10 oz.) chips (peanut butter, mint, chocolate, whatever you like)
2/3 cup butter, softened
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl and set aside. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and continue to mix on high for one minute more. Using the mixer, gradually add the flour-cocoa mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, to the butter mixture until a smooth batter is formed. Stir in the chips using a spoon. Drop the cookie dough, 1 rounded teaspoon at a time, 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake cookies 8-9 minutes. Do not overbake. Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet and place on wire rack to cool completely.
Makes about 2 1/2 dozen
These cookies turn out so moist and chewy! I love the chocolate flavor, and mixing it with the peanut butter chips is like cookie perfection! You'll want to finish the whole batch in the first day, luckily I bagged up the give away cookies before the cookie monsters could get into them!
And as a very icky, very stupid side note....please, please, please crack your eggs in a separate bowl instead of directly into your batter. I know this rule, my momma told me that every time I baked anything and yet I fail to heed her advice. For the second time in my life I came across a "bad" egg that ruined a perfectly good batch of cookies! I think I may have finally learned my lesson! At least I hope!
Wow...you must make these! They were so rich, fluffy and delicious. I used this recipe for the base of the cupcakes. I altered it some by placing a caramel candy into each cupcake before baking. When these came out of the oven, the smell was like walking into your very own bakery.
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 creamy peanut butter
2 Tbs milk
With an electric mixer, beat together sugar, and butter until creamy. Add peanut butter, beating well. Add milk and beat until smooth and creamy. The icing will seem very stiff, but is quite easy to pipe.
Verdict: The cupcakes were moist and crumbly. They were so decadent, I could only eat one at a time (but we did finish off the dozen during the weekend...did I mention that we have sweet teeth?). The melted caramel in the center left a gooey layer of sweet, sticky goodness near the bottom of the cupcake. Next time, I'll add more caramel to each one. Have you seen the caramel bits in the chocolate chip aisle...next time I'll experiment with them. The frosting was very peanut buttery...if that's a word. If you like peanut butter, this is the recipe for you. Next time I might cut down on the peanut butter, though my better half might not agree! He's a fan! We even let Little Man try them, and he was more than happy to eat more!
As a final note, I am working on my piping skills, obviously. It's evident that I didn't use the right tip and promptly went out and bought the Wilton Jumbo 1M tip. Much better! The next cupcake experiment turned out better! I also have very limited food photography skills, though I am trying to get better. I've been reading blog after blog on just about every aspect of food photography, cupcake recipes, blog design and who knows what else! Bear with me as I start this crazy ride!
