Peanut Butter Apple Cookies

Once again, this post is not quite what is was meant to be, but as I haven't typed the recipe up for my Christmas cupcakes yet I thought I'd fill the space with these lovelies, which have been waiting a long time. I don't know if you've discovered the uber-snack that is apple slices and peanut butter (I'm sure I've gone on about it before) but these cookies were the product of that, baked for a friend's Amnestea. And very good they were too, I promise you. 

Peanut Butter and Apple Cookies

Adapted from ‘The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook’ this makes around 15 cookies

Ingredients 

110g butter

100g caster sugar

100g soft dark brown sugar

1 egg

120g crunchy peanut butter

170g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

One medium apple, chopped finely

Preheat the oven to 160 for a fan,

Cream the butter and sugars together until light and, well, creamy looking. Then beat in the egg, followed by the peanut butter (more or less depending on taste, and also feel free to use smooth if you rather, but I like the added texture of the peanut pieces.) Mix the flour and the bicarb together as you weigh, then fold it into the cookie dough, with the chopped apple. Put the mixture into the fridge (I left mine overnight) then when you’re ready and it’s nice and chilled, bake around 5 on a tray at a time for 12-15 minutes until golden (Mine weren't quite as orange as the photo's suggest, but the camera was having a tango moment)

Hazelnut-Choc-Chunk Cookies

Really, I can claim no credit for these 'crunchy on the outside, nuttily sweet and soft on the inside' beauties. The recipe is shamelessly stolen from my sisters lovely blog , the only difference being me FORGETTING to add oats. How does that happen? I love oats! So as you can see, I rolled a few of the dough balls in oats to assuage my guilt slightly. And in place of dark chocolate chunks I used some cheeky Green and Blacks Butterscotch chocolate I found in the baking cupboard. Mmmmm. And nice for a change, but next time I make these I'll revert to dark I think, to showcase the hazelnutty dough.

Sarah's Choc Chunk 

Hazelnut Oaties

Ingredients

8oz butter

4 oz caster sugar

5 oz dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla syrup 

5 oz plain flour 

4 oz bread flour (or just 9oz plain)

50g chopped up chocolate and hazelnuts

50g oats

Preheat the oven to 160 ish for a fan

Cream the butter and sugars together until they have a buttercream-like consistency, then add the egg and vanilla and beat again till smooth.

Sift the flour(s) into the bowl and fold in with a spoon, then add the chocolate, nuts, and oats (optional apparently)

The dough will be quite stiff. Put it in the fridge and forget about it...go have lunch, cuppa tea, tiddlywinks match, whatever you fancy just let the dough to chill a bit so your butter doesn't melt the cookies all over the place when in the oven. Then when you're ready and the dough's nicely chilled, place balls of it onto lined sheets and bake for 12-15 mins until golden.

Indecision Cookies

I'll get to these in a minute...

Last week was actually quite busy on the baking front, so busy in fact that I didn't really stop to photo or post any of my endeavours. Apart from 'that cake', I made some cherry and almond cookies and quick brownies (from a packet mix, not gonna lie) for my brother to take for a bake sale, and lovely mini Red Velvet Cupcakes for my friend's birthday on thursday (Incidentally, we went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter, which was brilliant. The atmosphere was incredible; loads of people were dressed up, we all had our little round HP 3-D glasses on, everyone cheered at Molly Weasley. What more could you want from a night out?)

I digress. Here's a recipe from a few weeks ago in replacement for my poor post planning

Peanut-Butter-Oat-n-Raisin Cookies
Adapted from Sugar and Spice
Reeni's cookies looked amazing, but unfortunately I didn’t have any walnuts or spare chocolate around to chunk up so as I couldn’t decide what to do,  I combined this with one of my favourite cookies ever - the humble oat and raisin. And as it’s an American recipe, normally I’d go ‘aw, they look nice, but I know my estimation skills are shoddy so lets not try and guess cups…never mind’ but no more! Due to my mother’s excellent finding skills I am now the proud owner of these adorable Russian doll measuring cups. Really I just needed an excuse to try them out. Don’t you just love it when a coincidence like that comes along?

Ingredients
3 /4  cup butter
2/3 cup peanut butter (I like the extra texture of crunchy but it’s up to you!)
1 cup caster sugar
1 /2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 /2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla syrup
1 ¼ cups plain flour
2 cups rolled oats
2 handfuls of raisins

  

Preheat the oven to 180 for a fan oven. 

Beat the butter and peanut butter together using an electric hand whisk and then add the sugars, baking powder, bicarb of soda and cinnamon. Then beat loads again till it’s as smooth as possible (resisting the urge to just eat the mixture as you go)
Add the eggs one at a time and then the vanilla, still beating. 

Sift the flour in an stir by hand for a bit so you don’t get big flour clouds, then once it’s roughly incorporated get the electric whisk on it again.

Finally stir the oats and raisins in and put the whole thing in the fridge. Forget about it for as long as you like, just so it solids up a bit and doesn’t spread so much when you get to bake them. Then when you’re ready place rounded tablespoons of cookie dough onto lined baking trays, and bake for 10 minutes (I’m afraid I don’t know exactly how many this makes, around 15-20 depending on how much of the mixture you eat while ‘letting it rest’)