Hello!
Isn't it an excellent afternoon to bake cookies? I just heard thunder in the sky in amongst the thumping of rain against our tin roof. Oh and now hail! This is wonderful! It sounds like I have a rain simulator going. But I don't.
Well since the weather is so delicious, can I tempt you in some as equally delicious peanut butter cookies?
The other day I was told that Whittakers had just released a new peanut butter flavoured chocolate. I haven't tried it yet but in semi celebration/inspiration I decided to make these cookies. Whilst flicking through my Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, I found this recipe. A bit of forewarning though, they have a tonne of butter and even more sugar in them! (400g!). Oh but they are sure worth it.
The recipe says it makes 24 but I managed to get 32 out of this lot, and the cookies still turned out huge! The important thing is to make sure you cream your butter and sugar enough and then once the eggs are added beat until the volume almost doubles. I cannot stress the important of creaming enough - it makes the cookies light and fluffy but also yields a greater dough volume which means more cookies!
So here is what you will need:
225g unsalted softened butter
200g caster sugar
200g brown sugar
2 eggs (large/size 7)
240g crunchy peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (I always throw more in)
340g plain flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
75g dark chocolate, chopped
Method:
Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
Cream the butter and both the sugars together in a bowl and bea ton high for around three minutes, or until the mixture lightens in colour. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue beating until mixture almost doubles in size. You want it to be very fluffy.
Next, weigh out your peanut butter and then add that to the mixture. Add in the vanilla. Beat until combined.
Sieve in the flour, baking soda and salt. Beat until evenly dispersed.
Once a smooth dough has formed, stir in the chopped chocolate.
Roll the dough into balls (somewhere in between a ping pong ball and a gold ball in size).
These cookies expand quite a bit so place only 8 at a time, evenly spaced on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
Press the balls down with a flour fork.
Bake for 11 minutes. Remove from oven, leave to cool on the tray before transferring with a spatula onto a cooling rack or paper towel. Repeat for the rest of the cookies.
Ok so the method in pictures for all you visual learners out there :)
(So much sugar!!)
Cream together your butter and sugars until nice the fluffy.
Since there is brown sugar in the mix, it wont go white but it should go a light brown colour like above.
Such tiny tiny eggs! We had tiny eggs so I chose the smallest and used three instead of two large ones. It worked out fine.
Beat beat beat until super fluffy!
Now get your peanut butter ready .
The extra crunchy meant there were extra peanutty bits!
That is quarter of a 1kg jar . . .
Mmm yum
Beat this together until nice and evenly dispersed.
See how smooth it looks :)
Don't forget your vanilla!
Haha who sealed our baking soda bag with a paper clip! Very cool.
Sieve in your flour, salt and baking soda. Beat the mixture until a smooth dough has formed.
Now for the fun bit. Chop your chocolate into chunks. You want a few big chunks in there.
Mix that in . . .
It helps if you flour your hands before rolling the balls of dough. That way it wont stick to your hands as much.
In between pressing the dough balls down, dip your fork in some flour, that way the balls wont stick to your fork. Once pressed, pop them in the oven for 11 minutes.
While waiting for the first lot to cook, roll the rest of your dough. It saves time later.
And Bam!! 11 minutes later they come out looking like these beauties. See how large they became? You don't want to space them any closer. Once they are cool, remove them from the tray and pop the next lot in :)
Serve with a nice glass of milk :)
Chris managed to pick up one that had just come out of the oven. The chocolate was still gooey. Jealous. But it did sort of fall apart.
So many cookies!
Now before Alix, Lucy and I get to them, I put them in a freezer bag and then into the freezer where they shall live and only come out one at a time! haha. Just put them in the microwave for 10 seconds and you have warm fresh cookies every day!
Have a good rainy afternoon!
xoxo
