pb+j cookies
Do you ever wake up and just feel like baking? No? Just me? Yesterday, I woke up at 7am with an urge to bake something, so I figured it was a good opportunity to bring back another recipe from the vault.
Let me tell you how this recipe came to life. It all started way back in 2013. I was already a few years out of college and trying to find my place in the world. In addition to a few part-time jobs, I had just got accepted into dental hygiene school. One of the part-time jobs that I had after college was working as a baker in a small local bake shop. Although it was not the most glamorous job, especially for someone with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics/Chemistry, it reignited my passion for baking and creating in the kitchen. I dedicated any free moment to experimenting with the endless possibilities that I had constantly streaming through my head. My head is a very busy place, filled with baked good dreams wanting to become reality. Welcome to my head space. It's an adventure.
Anyway, around that time, I went through a serious cookie-stuffing phase. Because, who doesn't love a stuffed cookie? You get the greatness of a tasty cookie base magically paired with the surprise of a filled center. Yes, I did say magic and I won't take that back. The magic is real here. A stuffed cookie surpasses all regular cookie enjoyment levels, because it is a perfectly portable sweet treat that gets better and better as you eat it. One of my favorite stuffed cookie combinations is my pb+j cookie. It is a classic pairing where everything about pb+j is just obviously so much better because it is in the form of a cookie.
PB+J Cookies
Yields about 2 dozen cookies
INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temp
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
berry preserve (always use the one you like best)
sparkling sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a bowl, whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat together butter and peanut butter. Scrape down bowl and beat again until even consistency.
4. Add granulated white sugar and light brown sugar to butter mixture. Beat until fluffy. Then beat in egg and vanilla. Scrape down bowl and paddle and beat everything again until well-combined.
5. Add dry mixture into wet mixture on the stir speed. Allow to stir until just combined. Avoid over-mixing!
6. With a small cookie cream scoop, dish out even portions of dough (about a 1-in diameter ball) onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. If the dough seems a little too sticky to handle, you can refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes just to make it a little easier to work with before you start the stuffing process.
7. One-by-one, palm each portion of dough in one hand and, with the other hand, use your fingers to gently make an indentation into each dough ball. Fill the well with the jam. (I put about a teaspoon of berry preserve into each because I like to make sure they are stuffed well.) To enclose the preserve, pinch the dough together. You may have to add a little additional dough on top to make sure it's completely covered. Then roll stuffed cookie dough back into a round ball shape. Place back onto the baking sheet. Repeat process, making sure cookies are spaced a couple inches apart to account for spreading.
8. With a fork, gently make a slight crisscross pattern across all the dough balls. It will pat them down a little in the process. Then sprinkle a little sparkling sugar on top. (The sparkling sugar will settle into the little crevices of the crisscross pattern.)
9. In the preheated oven, bake the cookies for 14-15 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway in between. The cookies should look like they are just browning. They make appear somewhat soft still but they will set as they cool. Do not to overbake!
10. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool directly on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes. Then carefully transfer to a wire cooling rack.
11. Eat after cookies have cooled or store in an airtight container for later.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT A STUFFED COOKIE: Number one, patience is key. Especially if you have never made a stuffed cookie before, there is somewhat of a learning curve to getting the process down. Hopefully the instructions I spelled out help you through it. Secondly, these are not the cookies to make if you are pinched for time. Kind of goes hand-in-hand with number one. If you want to whip up a quick batch of cookies, I would suggest a simple drop cookie instead. You can even make the peanut butter cookie dough from this recipe and omit stuffing them with the preserve, which is easy enough to do. The actual stuffing portion of the recipe works best when it is done right, which just takes a little extra time. And most importantly, number three, enjoy the process and it will be worth it every time. That is my general rule of thumb when it comes to baking or cooking anything. Baking, in particular, can be very tedious at times. Go to your happy place and embrace the repetition. Have your favorite tunes playing in the background and keep your kitchen a happy place to be.
WHY THIS PB+J COMBINATION IS SO AMAZING: Okay, well we can already see how cute these cookies are with the jam ever-so-slightly peeking out of the top. So, curb appeal is a given here. The peanut butter cookie dough is so perfectly tender and will practically melt in your mouth. Then there is the fruitiness of the jam that really brings the buttery cookie to life. I would have these cookies over a traditional pb+j sandwich any day. I make a lot of baked goods with chocolate in it. These are a nice non-chocolate treat to have in the recipe box. However, if you are a chocolate lover through and through, you can easily substitute the berry preserve for Nutella. I have made that happen in the past and it is also a winning combo.
Admittedly, when I decided to bring these out of the vault, it just felt right to double the batch. So I have about 4 dozen pb+j cookies in my kitchen and Bella's nose is going crazy from the smell of peanut butter perfuming our space. It all makes me very happy. The world, its people, we are all going through some hard times right now. And, in my world, cookies always make situations better. They are an expression of love and always meant to be shared. I may not be able to make deliveries right now (like the good old days), but I may allow some curbside pickup.
I can try to describe what these cookies will bring to your life, but nothing I say will do them enough justice. Once you make these, you will get it. It will all make sense. Stuff some cookies and then proceed to stuff your face. It is totally acceptable and healthy in my book. You may ramble on with words that start making less and less sense because you are drunk off cookie goodness. I may have had a few cookies while writing this. Okay, bye friends. Off to hide the cookies from Ryan before he eats them all.
Let me tell you how this recipe came to life. It all started way back in 2013. I was already a few years out of college and trying to find my place in the world. In addition to a few part-time jobs, I had just got accepted into dental hygiene school. One of the part-time jobs that I had after college was working as a baker in a small local bake shop. Although it was not the most glamorous job, especially for someone with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics/Chemistry, it reignited my passion for baking and creating in the kitchen. I dedicated any free moment to experimenting with the endless possibilities that I had constantly streaming through my head. My head is a very busy place, filled with baked good dreams wanting to become reality. Welcome to my head space. It's an adventure.
Anyway, around that time, I went through a serious cookie-stuffing phase. Because, who doesn't love a stuffed cookie? You get the greatness of a tasty cookie base magically paired with the surprise of a filled center. Yes, I did say magic and I won't take that back. The magic is real here. A stuffed cookie surpasses all regular cookie enjoyment levels, because it is a perfectly portable sweet treat that gets better and better as you eat it. One of my favorite stuffed cookie combinations is my pb+j cookie. It is a classic pairing where everything about pb+j is just obviously so much better because it is in the form of a cookie.
PB+J Cookies
Yields about 2 dozen cookies
INGREDIENTS
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temp
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
berry preserve (always use the one you like best)
sparkling sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a bowl, whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat together butter and peanut butter. Scrape down bowl and beat again until even consistency.
4. Add granulated white sugar and light brown sugar to butter mixture. Beat until fluffy. Then beat in egg and vanilla. Scrape down bowl and paddle and beat everything again until well-combined.
5. Add dry mixture into wet mixture on the stir speed. Allow to stir until just combined. Avoid over-mixing!
6. With a small cookie cream scoop, dish out even portions of dough (about a 1-in diameter ball) onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. If the dough seems a little too sticky to handle, you can refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes just to make it a little easier to work with before you start the stuffing process.
7. One-by-one, palm each portion of dough in one hand and, with the other hand, use your fingers to gently make an indentation into each dough ball. Fill the well with the jam. (I put about a teaspoon of berry preserve into each because I like to make sure they are stuffed well.) To enclose the preserve, pinch the dough together. You may have to add a little additional dough on top to make sure it's completely covered. Then roll stuffed cookie dough back into a round ball shape. Place back onto the baking sheet. Repeat process, making sure cookies are spaced a couple inches apart to account for spreading.
8. With a fork, gently make a slight crisscross pattern across all the dough balls. It will pat them down a little in the process. Then sprinkle a little sparkling sugar on top. (The sparkling sugar will settle into the little crevices of the crisscross pattern.)
9. In the preheated oven, bake the cookies for 14-15 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway in between. The cookies should look like they are just browning. They make appear somewhat soft still but they will set as they cool. Do not to overbake!
10. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool directly on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes. Then carefully transfer to a wire cooling rack.
11. Eat after cookies have cooled or store in an airtight container for later.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT A STUFFED COOKIE: Number one, patience is key. Especially if you have never made a stuffed cookie before, there is somewhat of a learning curve to getting the process down. Hopefully the instructions I spelled out help you through it. Secondly, these are not the cookies to make if you are pinched for time. Kind of goes hand-in-hand with number one. If you want to whip up a quick batch of cookies, I would suggest a simple drop cookie instead. You can even make the peanut butter cookie dough from this recipe and omit stuffing them with the preserve, which is easy enough to do. The actual stuffing portion of the recipe works best when it is done right, which just takes a little extra time. And most importantly, number three, enjoy the process and it will be worth it every time. That is my general rule of thumb when it comes to baking or cooking anything. Baking, in particular, can be very tedious at times. Go to your happy place and embrace the repetition. Have your favorite tunes playing in the background and keep your kitchen a happy place to be.
WHY THIS PB+J COMBINATION IS SO AMAZING: Okay, well we can already see how cute these cookies are with the jam ever-so-slightly peeking out of the top. So, curb appeal is a given here. The peanut butter cookie dough is so perfectly tender and will practically melt in your mouth. Then there is the fruitiness of the jam that really brings the buttery cookie to life. I would have these cookies over a traditional pb+j sandwich any day. I make a lot of baked goods with chocolate in it. These are a nice non-chocolate treat to have in the recipe box. However, if you are a chocolate lover through and through, you can easily substitute the berry preserve for Nutella. I have made that happen in the past and it is also a winning combo.
Admittedly, when I decided to bring these out of the vault, it just felt right to double the batch. So I have about 4 dozen pb+j cookies in my kitchen and Bella's nose is going crazy from the smell of peanut butter perfuming our space. It all makes me very happy. The world, its people, we are all going through some hard times right now. And, in my world, cookies always make situations better. They are an expression of love and always meant to be shared. I may not be able to make deliveries right now (like the good old days), but I may allow some curbside pickup.
I can try to describe what these cookies will bring to your life, but nothing I say will do them enough justice. Once you make these, you will get it. It will all make sense. Stuff some cookies and then proceed to stuff your face. It is totally acceptable and healthy in my book. You may ramble on with words that start making less and less sense because you are drunk off cookie goodness. I may have had a few cookies while writing this. Okay, bye friends. Off to hide the cookies from Ryan before he eats them all.
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