Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cookies

I’m on a cookie roll. Or should I say I’m rolling in cookies? Well, either way, it’s got to be right. After a batch of burnt chocolate cookies and a set of really successful almond shortbread cookies, I set out on another ambitious cookie project – chocolate cookies with a peanut butter filling.

’ve been trawling the net for hours each day for the last few days to get some interesting recipes to pep up everyday cooking. And I stumbled upon a link that was a treasure trove of great looking and not-so-difficult-to-prepare cookies, brownies.

Now, the problem is, I don’t use eggs and most really nice and different looking recipes feature eggs. And, given my baking skill and experience, it’s a tough task to figure out egg substitutes. I was quite adventurous a few years ago, in the sense that I’d happily use recipes with eggs and substitute it with milk or extra curd or vinegar or a combination of all of these with quite disastrous results usually. And so, I decided early this year that I’d only take safe risks. Now, I know that’s a … but I stuck to my self-made promise. Till this morning that is!

I came across these exotic high-end bakery style cookies on one website, attractively titled Magic-in the-Middle cookies (http://asweeterthing.com/2011/11/17/magic-in-the-middle-cookies/). I immediately saved the recipe right at the top of my to-do-recipe folder. This morning when I looked into the ingredients to see if I had all the necessary ingredients, I was thoroughly disappointed. The recipe called for an egg!

The pleading make-me-and-devour me-right-now look of those cookies really tugged at my heart and I decided to break my say-no-to-egg-recipes resolution this once. And I’m glad I did! Since it was only one egg (so what if it actually said one large egg plus one large egg yolk) I decided I’d try substituting it with some butter and milk. And it turned out just fine. Well, that would be an understatement. I should say they turned out absolutely great (well, I never claimed to be humble, did I)!

 

Magic in the Middle Cookies/ Chocolate Cookies with Peanut-Butter Filling

Ingredients

(Makes around 20 BIG cookies)

For the cookie dough:

Flour – ¾ – 1 cup

Cocoa powder (unsweetened) – ¼ cup

Baking powder – ½ tsp

Granulated sugar – ½ cup

Salt – a pinch (leave out if you’re using Amul or other salted butter like me)

Butter – 60 gm

Peanut butter (smooth) – ¼ cup (Recipe follows cookie recipe in case you want to make this at home like me)

Milk – 2 tbsp

Vanilla essence – ½ tsp

For the filling:

Peanut butter (smooth or chunky)* – 1/3 cup

Powdered sugar – 1/3 cup (Adjust the quantity of sugar if peanut butter to too sweet already)

Method

Preheat oven to 175 deg C

Mix the peanut butter and powdered sugar for the filling

Roll into small 1 tsp-size balls

Mix flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder

Beat butter, peanut butter and sugar till fluffy

Add vanilla essence and milk to the butter mix and beat some more

Add flour mix to butter mix to make dough

Add a little olive oil if dough feels too dry or a little flour if it is too sticky

Roll into 1 tbsp-size balls (you should get around 15)

Flatten each ball to stuff it with the peanut butter filling balls

Place a small filling ball in the centre of each of the flattened cookie dough balls and cover it from the sides and the top, the way you would while stuffing a paratha or a modak/modakam. Don’t worry if you’re not able to cover the peanut filling completely

Flatten each cookie ball with your fingers or the back of a glass

Place them on a baking sheet with adequate space in between two cookies as they tend to spread. You don’t want to end up with cookies sticking to each other and trying to break them apart

Bake in the preheated oven for 12 min

Cool completely and store in an air-tight container

 

Recipe for Peanut Butter

Take a cup of roasted peanuts. Peel off the papery skins

Grind nuts with a pinch of salt, around ¼ cup sugar and 1-2 tbsp of olive oil (sunflower oil will do too)

Grind well for a smooth consistency or halt when it is a coarse paste for the chunky version