Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies

yes, they do look sort of like poo... but these are the most delicious poo-looking confections i've ever eaten, let alone made! i had been wanting to try them for a while after i first saw the recipe on the jif site. but wait, i hear you saying, isn't jif peanut butter? those look chocolatey delicious but i don't see any peanut butter...

or, for a clearer, professional picture:


haha, fooled you! the peanut butter is on the inside, my friends, in between the fudgey chocolate cookie and the fudgey chocolate frosting. i told you, delicious.

these are officially called "peanut butter brownie cookies," as they are made from a brownie mix. you can get the exact recipe and proportions from the linked recipe site. so then, let's get down to it:

for the cookie part, mix brownie mix, butter, cream cheese, and egg, then drop onto a cookie sheet. i HIGHLY recommend putting them on parchment, as they are very sticky little suckers.


or, on a cookie mat, like silpat. i recently bought a wilton silicone baking mat, pictured below (it's blue). but i'm not all that crazy about it. maybe i just haven't used it enough. in fact, i think i've only used it once.


next, mix the peanut butter (i prefer chunky, always) with powdered sugar and drop dollops onto the sticky brownie dough, like so:


bake 10 minutes at 350 degrees, and let cool thoroughly. this is what they'll look like post-baking:


they must be cool, because the next step is to cover them with canned fudge frosting (my frosting also had little chocolate chips in it)... i'm drooling just thinking about this.


the cookies were so tender and chewy... just like you'd imagine a brownie-cum-cookie would be.

now, i baked these and ate them over the course of a few days, so i didn't frost them all right away. i just put them in a container and frosted as needed. my roommate, however, did not know that you were supposed to frost them and ate them sans-frosting, and thought they were yummy as well.

but really, why would you ever skip frosting?

so these cookies were uber delicious. delectable. mouthwatering. tasty. you can read the thesaurus entries yourself.

however, because the dough was so sticky and a hassle to work with, and because you had to do three steps (cookie, peanut butter, frosting), i probably won't be making these again any time soon. but if you want to make them for me, i will gladly eat them.

Flour Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

yes, i'm still alive! law school does tend to eat one's soul... er, i mean, time. i have managed to bake a few things in the past few months, but not to blog about them. so here's to catching up!


i made these flour-free peanut butter cookies, a variation on another recipe i'd tried before. the old recipe was just 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg. bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. that's it. super easy, and pretty tasty too.

this time, i tried one that looked more like a regular cookie recipe, from allrecipes.com:

• 2 cups peanut butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

mix, drop onto cookie sheet, bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. still super easy.

these are good for those who want to cut out wheat products, but they're still not quite the same. the sugar doesn't dissolve very well in the peanut butter or something, and i don't think the baking soda adds any lift to these, so i'd just as soon leave it out.


but, as you can see, these cookies were not left alone. what can make mediocre cookies delicious? chocolate ganache! i am a huge fan of ganache.

• i think this was one part cream to one part semi-sweet chocolate chips.
  
• heat the cream slowly, i prefer on low power in the microwave in a pyrex measuring cup.
  
• then pour over the chocolate and stir. ta-da! ganache!

New Cookbook in Action

i finally made some cookies from my new favorite cookbook, and they were delicious.

first up, sugared almond cookies. i made these at the request of my mother, who isn't such a big fan of chocolate but loves nuts and poppyseeds.

they're sort of a shortbread-y cookie, with almonds and poppy seeds. after making the dough, you form it into rolls in saran wrap and refrigerate it.


then you slice the dough, brush on some beaten egg, and sprinkle with sugar. the dough isn't that sweet, so the sugar is mandatory.


i ended up using a mixture of regular white sugar and sparkle sugar (which, of course, makes everything better).

perfect for tea and coffee!

next, crinkle top cookies. these are a nice, lightly chocolaty cookie, crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. just like i like 'em.


they've got extra leavening (in this case, baking soda), so they puff up quickly then collapse, hence the crinkliness. again, quite tasty, and you know i love me some chocolate!

Cookie Filled Cupcakes

they look like normal, unassuming cupcakes.
but they have a surprise inside them...

cookie dough!

these are so simple, and so decadent. just make your cupcakes as normal, but put a bit of frozen cookie dough in the batter before you bake them, like so:

you must freeze the cookie dough, at least 2 hours, or else the dough will bake and you'll have an odd crispy mess in the middle instead of a bit of cookie dough.

i'm not gonna lie, i used a chocolate cake mix for these and frozen break-n-bake cookie dough. i broke my own rule and used off-brand cake mix, and i paid the price for it. the cake part wasn't that great, sort of dry, but the cookie dough more than made up for it.

and i topped these with a ganache made with one part (1/2 cup) cream and two parts (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips. at first, i was thinking i should have used milk chocolate, but the semisweet was perfect. the cupcakes were quite sweet, so the semisweet ganache added a good contrast in sweetness and texture.

i was inspired by recipes on allrecipes.com and cakemixdoctor.com. this is an easy recipe that is easily adaptable, and the possibilities are endless! i had some more break-n-bake dough so i made more cupcakes with yellow cake mix (name brand this time) and ganache topping... so good. just imagine the flavor combinations with this cake, cookie, and frosting/topping combination!

New Cookbook!

i just got the best bake sale ever cookbook at half price books! it has a ton of cookie recipes, but also has recipes for (according to the chapter headings) bars and brownies, breads and coffee cakes, cupcakes, rolls, and muffins, cakes, pies, and more. it even has tips on how to organize and run a successful bake sale.


i just flipped through the first few cookie recipes, and i wanted to make every single one of them. i can't wait to get crackin'!

International Goodies

to celebrate my membership in the george washington international law review, i decided to make an international treat. i was thinking about some sort of ethnic cookie, but i really wanted to do something russian, and they're not big on cookies. then, i remembered something my host mom made for me all the time when i studied abroad: oladi!

"what the heck is oladi?" i hear you asking. well, it's in the pancake family. it's like a small, thick, lightly leavened blini, and a blini is like a crepe. oladi, like much russian cuisine, are an inexact science... more of an art, i suppose. you mess around with it, get the hang of it, and after a few failures, it just clicks and you get it. in fact, there's a russian saying, "the first blini is always a lump," (по-русски: "первый блин всегда комом") meaning practice makes perfect, or if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

so, away we go. ingredients (based on this recipe):

• 1 egg
• 2 cups (1 pint, or .5 liter) unflavored unsweetened kefir, available at a whole foods or wegman's type store; you can also use buttermilk or plain yogurt if you don't have kefir. you could even dilute some sour cream with milk... any sort of thick/fermented milk product will do.
  
• 4 tbsp sugar (or more if you want sweeter, more desserty oladi)
  
• pinch of salt
• 10 tbsp flour, to start
• 1 tsp baking soda, plus some vinegar

in a medium to large bowl, whisk together the kefir, egg, sugar and salt, just until blended. don't use a mixer! a fork works well.

next, whisk in the flour. you want it to be the consistency of thin sour cream. if it's too thin, add more flour by the tablespoon, whisking after each addition. i think i ended up having like 15 tablespoons or something in my batter. but start with 10: you can always add an ingredient, but you can't take it out.

now, at this point the original recipe said put a teaspoon of soda into a tablespoon, fill the tablespoon with vinegar, and mix into the batter. but i think if you just pour the soda into the batter, and before you mix it in, pour on 2 teaspoons of vinegar, and then mix it in. you're just trying to get some leavening in there. other recipes call for yeast, but this is easier. especially since i usually don't keep yeast around.

here's what my final batter looked like:


to cook these bad boys up, heat 5-6 tablespoons in a heavy skillet (i used our cast iron one, i think), over medium heat. the amount of oil is approximate; you just need enough to cover the bottom of the skillet, because you'll be frying these.

once the oil is hot, use a 1/4 cup measuring cup to ladle the batter into the pan. you want them to be about 2-3 inches in diameter, and you can do a few at a time, like so:

(sorry for the bad lighting- i was concentrating on not burning them or getting splattered with hot oil. no time to check the flash.)

fry them for about 2 minutes, then flip and fry on the other side for two minutes. make sure you have enough oil in the pan after each batch. these guys soak up a lot of it, so you'll most likely need to add more to make sure the bottom of the pan is covered.

i guarantee you'll burn your first one, so just get it out of the way so you can go on to rock the oladi. see, here's what they're supposed to look like (from tasterussian.com):


and here's my first batch:


pretty bad, i know. (actually, the burnt-ness doesn't mar the taste too terribly bad. they're still edible, just not as good as they should be.)
but, here's how some the rest turned out (most had been gobbled up by this point):


and here's a close up of the one with jam on it:


pretty darn good. serve them with sour cream and jam (cherry preferably, but raspberry or strawberry is good too). we were out of sour cream, so we just put jam on them, like the one on top. you could also serve them with something savory if you wished, and they'd make a good side dish to eggs and bacon. as you can see, they're generally a breakfast thing, but are fabulous as a dessert too.

cheers, to international law review and international treats!

Black(berry) Bottom Cupcakes

time for a delightful summertime desset- blackberry bottom cupcakes! i used livinglocurto's fresh blackberry cake recipe (she has a printable recipe there) and modified it a little and made cupcakes... and they were so delicious.

the texture of the cake was a little muffin-y, not as fine as regular cake, and not too terribly sweet, but the buttercream frosting definitely brought it into the cake realm. the cake has two tablespoons of lemon pudding mix in it, so that lightens and freshens the flavor up with just that hint of lemon, giving it another taste dimension.

my edits: i didn't have self-rising flour, but no problem. to make self-rising flour, you just add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt for each cup of all purpose flour. and, i'll even do the math for you- 4 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1 1/2 tsp salt and 3 c. all purpose flour for this recipe.
also, i used frozen blackberries instead of fresh, because i'm cheap, but i otherwise followed her recipe.

so, here we go. ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups frozen blackberries (about 1-16 oz package), thawed and drained and blotted
  
• 1 pinch of cinnamon
• 2 1/4 cups sugar (split)
• 1 cup softened butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 eggs at room temperature
• 3 cups all purpose flour, mixed with 4 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1 1/2 tsp salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons lemon instant pudding mix (you can make pudding later with the rest of the mix and 1 3/4 c milk)
  
• 1 cup of milk

-defrost, drain, and blot the blackberries. sprinkle with 1/4 c. sugar and a pinch cinnamon. set aside.
-preheat oven to 350. line as many cupcake tins as you have with cupcake papers (this recipe makes about 42 cupcakes, so you'll do several batches).
-mix together flour, powder, salt, and pudding mix. set aside.
-beat butter with a mixer until fluffy, then add the 2 c. sugar and vanilla and beat well.
-add eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition.
-add dry ingredients about 1 cup at a time, alternating with milk, and beating after each addition of dry or milk.
-put about 2-4 berries in each cupcake paper, then cover with a scoop of batter, filling about 1/2 to 2/3 full, like this:



-bake about 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. it's ok if it comes out with blackberry juice on it, just as long as it doesn't have cake batter on it. this is what they'll look like, hopefully.


the blackberries sort of leak through the papers and leave some juice in the pan, so you should wipe it out with a damp paper towel before moving onto the next batch. be careful when you're eating the final product as well, lest you have sticky blue fingers!

-let cool completely, preferably on a wire rack, then frost with buttercream frosting. the recipe i used is below, but i am certainly not one to judge you if you use a canned buttercream frosting. nobody will notice, especially since you put so much effort into the cake part!


so, if you're inclined to make your own buttercream frosting, here's a really simple recipe from allrecipes.com that makes for a really fabulous frosting.

-1/2 cup shortening
-1/2 cup butter, softened
-1 tsp vanilla (i added a little extra splash, because i like vanilla)
-4 cups powdered sugar (that's about 1 lb, so you can use just one box or half a 2 lb bag or something)
-2 tbsp milk

beat together the shortening and butter until smooth.
add the vanilla and beat until incorporated.
add the sugar, about one cup at a time, incorporating well after each addition.
after all the sugar is in, or with the last 1 cup addition, add the 2 tablespoons of milk.
that's it! spread it on or pipe it if you want to be extra fancy. it's fairly stiff, so it lends itself well to piping.

here's a piped batch, ready to be shared with co-workers.


needless to say, these made me an office baking legend.