Tag-Archive for ◊ peanut butter ◊

08 Jul 2010 Peanut Butter Blossoms (Kisses)
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Sweets  | Tags: , , ,  | One Comment

Abby is the cookie baker in our family, and she’s terrific at it. Each cookie has a perfect shape. Each batch is a uniform size. She even counts the M&Ms and the chocolate chips to make sure each cookie, NO!-each BITE of each cookie-has the perfect number of candy morsels. The cookie recipe that made her famous? This one, one of the Classic American Cookies, Peanut Butter Blossoms (sometimes called Peanut Butter Kisses). Abby dressed this batch up for July 4th, but usually the dough is rolled in plain white sugar. Abby prefers to use Hugs, over Kisses, in the middle, which is a personal preference thing. For some odd reason, the recipe Abby first used had her turn the Kisses/Hugs upside down (which we have never seen done anywhere else). I LOVE the upside-down component. It makes me laugh, so she makes one tray upside down for me when she bakes. Unfortunately, she mastered this cookie when she was in 5th grade, and the kids laughed at her for the upside down hugs/kisses-not in the way I laughed-so now she puts the Hug/Kiss in the cookie right side up if it’s made to leave the house! You can find versions of this recipe anywhere and everywhere, this is the recipe Abby uses. It makes about 48 cookies. The photo below is of leftover, well traveled cookies. (I forgot to take a picture of the fresh, perfect, right-side up Peanut Butter Blossoms.)

Peanut Butter Blossoms (Kisses)

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened (but not runny)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (Abby is a Skippy girl!)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
extra granulated sugar (to roll the dough in)
about 48 Hershey Hugs or Kisses, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl to combine and to aerate, set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter until light and fluffy (3-5 minutes) then beat in the peanut butter and the white and brown sugars. Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract. Gradually stir in the blended dry ingredients. Pinch off walnut sized pieces of the dough and roll into balls (you should have about 48 balls). Roll the balls in granulated sugar and place 1 inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes, or until cookie just begins to color. Remove tray from oven and press an unwrapped Hug or Kiss into the middle of each cookie (right side up or upside down). Return the tray to the oven and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Remove from oven. Let cool on tray for a minute then remove cookies to a wire rack to cool.

08 Jul 2010 Peanut Butter Pancakes
Author:  |  Category: Breakfast & Brunch  | Tags: , , ,  | Leave a Comment

My Grandson attacking the photo shoot pancake...

I have two daughters. One of them loves all things peanut butter. The other one despises all things peanut butter. The one who loves all things peanut butter is home. She’s working four part time jobs and taking a summer class at SJSU. She’s not a little kid anymore, but I can still treat her to a fun breakfast to kick off her full days in a special way. She loved these pancakes. So did my grandson. That’s him destroying my photo pancake. I liked these too. The peanut butter taste is mellow, not cloying as I had feared. I had my pancake with jelly (I’m a purist) and whipped cream. Abby and Zade had theirs with maple syrup. Both ways tasted great. The original recipe suggested serving with sliced bananas and chopped honey roasted peanuts along with the maple syrup. That sounds good, too! This recipe is from “Family Fun“, one of my very favorite magazines. The recipes in family fun are usually very simple, and every one of them I’ve tried has worked! I can’t say that for recipes in any other magazine. (I was one of the first subscribers to “Family Fun”, this was wayyyy back before Disney bought it out.)

Peanut Butter Pancakes

1 cup flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter OR vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups milk

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside. In another bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, sugar, and melted butter OR oil until smooth. Beat in the egg, then the milk. Pour the liquid mixture into the flour mixture, stirring just until blended. Liightly coat a frying pan with a bit of butter, oil, or a spray of Pam and heat pan over medium-high heat. Drop the batter onto the griddle by 1/4- 1/2 cup measures (depending on how big you want your pancake). Cook pancake until tiny bubbles appear on the surfaces and the edges appear a bit dry, then flip and cook a few minutes more. Serve with your choice of sliced bananas, chopped honey roasted peanuts, jelly, maple syrup, whipped cream. Makes 4-6 6″ – 8″ pancakes.

09 Jun 2010 Guest Recipe: Mini Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes
Author:  |  Category: Cakes & Cupcakes, Guest Recipe, Sweets  | Tags: , , , ,  | One Comment

WHOOOHOOOOO!!!! My friend Louise is generously sharing this recipe with us. These little cupcakes are TO DIE FOR. Honestly. I want these for my birthday this year! Louise pulled these lovelies together with the help of Paula Deen, Ina Garten and a good dose of her own creativity.

Louise writes “The recipe for these cupcakes is both very easy and very yummy! For over-the-top goodness, frost with the Peanut Butter Frosting–you can even crown them with chopped, salted peanuts for that salty, sweet thing!” Please, crown with chopped salted peanuts.

My daughter Abby made these for the French exchange students in her dorm.  She not only got kissed,  on both cheeks, by both exchange students, but they also made her  famous.  Students stop her in the hall and ask for these cupcakes.  Dorm residents knock on her door and ask for these cupcakes.  Louise’s Mini Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes have defiantly been the highlight of her year at college so far <Sigh.  And to think I sent her there to STUDY. ..to graduate…with a degree…in Biology…in Forensic Genetics…>

Mini Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes

from Paula Deen

1 (18 1/2-ounce) package chewy fudge brownie mix (I’ve used Duncan Hines and Ghirardelli, either was fine)
24 miniature peanut butter cups
Peanut Butter Frosting, recipe below
Chopped, salted peanuts

Cupcake Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line mini-cupcake pan with paper liners. Prepare the brownie mix according to package directions for cake-like brownies. Fill the cups half full with brownie batter. Press 1/2 peanut butter cup into the batter in each muffin cup until the batter meets the top edge of the peanut butter cup. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, until the cupcakes are set. When they can be handled safely, remove them from the muffin tins and let cool completely on wire racks.

When cool, frost with Peanut Butter Frosting. Top frosted cupcakes with chopped, salted peanuts for extra yumminess.

Peanut Butter Frosting

from Ina Garten

1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I use Skippy)
5 TBSP unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp kosher salt (omit if using salted butter)
1/3 cup heavy cream

Frosting Directions

Place the confectioner’s sugar, peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.
Frost cupcakes when cool, and top with chopped, salted peanuts.

31 Jan 2010 Peanut Butter Cookies
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Sweets  | Tags: ,  | One Comment

This recipe has been around for ages, I’m sure you’ve heard of it. It’s been billed as “World’s Best Peanut Butter Cookie”. The ingredients are: peanut butter, egg, sugar, no flour. The cookies taste to me, and although the texture is much crisper, sort of like the inside of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I really want to dunk the bottoms in chocolate, and if I had any left, I would. This recipe is from the cookbook I’ve started cooking my way through, “The 150 Best American Recipes”. The original recipe did not call for salt, but I added 1/2 tsp. as suggested by the note in the cookbook. I made mini-versions of these last night to dunk in the chocolate fondue. Delicious. My friend made four large cookies from this dough and used it as a base for killer “Tin Roof Sundaes”–Peanut butter cookie, vanilla ice-cream, hot fudge sauce, salted peanuts, whipped cream. Delicious. You don’t need to do anything special with them though, these cookies are delicious, just as they are.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two cookie sheets or line with parchment paper. With an electric mixer beat peanut butter and sugar until well combined. Lightly beat the egg and then add into peanut butter-sugar mixture along with the baking soda and optional salt. Roll approximate teaspoonsful of dough into balls and place on prepared cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Flatten the balls with two presses of a fork, making the traditional peanut butter cookie crosshatch pattern (See the first picture) or flatten the balls with the heel of your hand and press a whole roasted salted peanut in the middle-in the style of a Chinese Almond Cookie (see the second picture). Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until puffed and a pale golden color, about 10 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes and then remove to wire rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container for up to 5 days. Makes about 4 dozen smallish cookies.

The perils of food photography!

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