Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Martha Stewart is truly the queen of cookies. I love her. Whenever I need an idea for super indulgent cookies, I go to her site. And I am never disappointed. Last week I needed cookies for a ride up to the Catskill - about 3 hours away from Brooklyn. The driver specifically asked for chocolate and peanut butter. These cookies were perfect.



Except somewhere during the process of halving the recipe, I messed up. For some reasons, I halved everything else except flour and peanut butter. I quartered (used only 1/2 cup of sugar) but that was according to my plan.



The results were these cookies that didn't spread out like the picture on the site. I had to flatten them with a spoon to make them more presentable. But regardless of how they looked, they were crunchy, just sweet enough to pass as cookies, salty and delicious. Every single cookie was consumed within the first half hour of the ride.

Peanut Butter Nutella Sandwich Cookies

Is it possible to have too many good things in a cookie? In this case, it's not possible. Sandwich delicious peanut butter oatmeal cookies together with Nutella, and we get out-of-this-worldly tasty crunchy satisfyingly delicious peanut butter Nutella cookies.



I started with a double batch of this oatmeal peanut butter cookies.



Was too lazy to whip up peanut butter frosting, I open a jar of Nutella and spread generously onto the cookies to form sandwich cookies.



I brought half the cookies to a beach weekend outing and had to rapidly give the rest away so that I wouldn't eat them all. Evil cookies. Dangerous.

"Wedding" Cake

I haven't been blogging much lately. That's because I had been keeping myself busy with this giant project -- a wedding cake. Yes, a wedding cake - in my tiny kitchen (plus every square inch of my studio apartment.) And since nobody is crazy enough to trust me (and my baker friend Hannah) with their actual wedding cake yet, we organized our own "wedding."

It was set in Prospect Park in Brooklyn over the weekend. About twenty of our friends came out despite the hot summer day. It was a lot of fun. And the cake was delicious.



We baked 2 13-inch chocolate chili cakes, 3 9-inch, and 3 6-inch chocolate cakes to make up a 3-tier cake. We used this recipe from MarthaStewart.com. I made 5 batches of the recipe. Three went into the 13-inch chocolate chili cakes. We frosted the base with chocolate chili buttercream. The middle layer with peanut butter buttercream and the top layer with coffee butter cream.



We also made some white chocolate fondant to cover the cake. We cut out about 300 flowers from the leftover fondant to decorate the cake.



We brought the cake to the park in 3 pieces. Lots of heart-attack induced events on the way but we got there.



The cake eventually got eaten. They were delicious. Each layer had distinct flavor but also complimented the others. The cake help itself up really well during at least 3 hours in close to 100 degree outdoor weather.

Peanut Butter M&M's Oatmeal Cookies

I got these candies last weekend going to the movie Ironman. The movie was enjoyable. The candies - not as much. After a fistful of these (after a very spicy Thai dinner and hazelnut wafers), I could feel my stomach complaining. My other friends refused to eat anymore of them by the end of the night.

At home, trying to stop myself from finishing the rest in the bag - I figured they might be good in cookies.



And they are!

I used vanishing oatmeal cookies recipe on the side of Quaker Oats container. I remember these cookies were really delicious. I just reduced the sugar to only 1 cup and substituted a cup of peanut butter M&Ms and white chocolate chips for raisins.



The only problem I had with them was that they didn't expand. Maybe my oven wasn't hot enough. Or maybe I should have press them flatter before baking instead of just drop them on the cookie sheets.


colorful cookie dough

Now I want to try using all kinds of different candies in cookies. Yay! More excuse to buy candies!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Pink Buttercream and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

More chocolate cupcakes! These are for the fabulous mom to be - Chadie - and her baby shower. I normally don't color my cupcake frosting but this is for a special occasion. It's going to be a girl - at least some of the cupcakes need to be pink.

The fantastic cupcake recipe was from cupcakeblog.com. This will be the one chocolate cupcake recipe of my choice from now on.



Pink Buttercream Frosting

• 1 stick butter - room temperature


• 1 1/2 cups confectioner sugar


• 1/4 cup heavy cream


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• A few drops of red food coloring


• With an electric mixer, beat the butter until light. Add sugar. Continue beating. Add vanilla extract. Slowly pour in heavy cream while beating. Add a few drops of red color. Add more sugar or heavy cream to get the right consistency.

Peanut Butter Frosting

• 1 stick butter - room temperature


• 1 cup creamy peanut butter


• 1 cup confectioner sugar


• 1/4 cup heavy cream


• Beat butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer. Add sugar. Add heavy cream. Beat until fluffy - about 3 minutes.

The pink buttercream was a hit. I thought people would prefer peanut butter over a simple buttercream but I was wrong. It's probably the pink - something about pink and women. I personally thought the chocolate - peanut butter combo turned out super awesome. I ate 3 of them over the span of 2 days -- sugar overload.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Peanut butter cupcakes dipped in chocolate sauce with peanut butter whipped cream frosting.

Happy Birthday Yair!



Now the recipes and where the rest of the cupcakes went...

I searched high and low for peanut butter cake recipe that is not dense. And finally I found this! Where else would it be other than my favourite Epicurious.com. I knew it was promising because it required 4 eggs, a cup of buttermilk and a teaspoon of baking soda and baking powder each. And I wasn't disappointed. Of course, I had to change things a bit because of what I had in the house. I used yogurt instead of buttermilk, 1/4 cup of extra light tasting olive oil instead to replace butter, and only 2 cups of sugar.


Naked cupcake

Ingredients

• Cake


• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon baking powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 stick butter (room tempurature) + 1/4 cup oil


• 2 cups sugar


• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter


• 4 eggs


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cup plain non-fat yogurt



• Chocolate Dip


• 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate - chopped


• 1/2 cup heavy cream



• Peanut Butter Frosting


• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream - chilled


• 1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter

Runny chocolate sauce because I couldn't wait.
Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line muffin pan with liners.


2. Make the cake. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.


3. With electric mixer, beat butter, oil and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add peanut butter. Beat until well combined. Scrape the bowl occasionally. Add eggs one at a time. Beat some more. Add vanilla.


4. Alternately stir in flour mixture and yogurt in 3 batches. Stir until well combined.


5. Drop by tablespoonful into prepared pan - fill up to about half full because the cake will rise. Bake for 17 minutes. Cool on a rack. I got 32 cupcakes.


6. While wait for the cupcake to bake and cool, boil 1/2 cup heavy cream in a sauce pan over medium heat until bubbly on the edges - just a few minutes. Pour over chopped chocolate in a small bowl. Stir until chocolate melts and let cool in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.


7. Dip cooled cupcakes in the chilled chocolate sauce and set aside.


8. Make frosting, beat heavy cream and peanut butter with an electric mixter with a wire whisk attachment until stiff. Gently drop the frosting over chocolate dipped cupcakes.


9. Make 32 cupcakes - enough for 2 parties - a private birthday party - and a house party (that I didn't attend but heard it's fun...)