Peanut Butter Toffee Crunch Cookies

This cookie is a variation on last week’s Cinnamon Toffee Crunch Cookies. I played around with the dough a little bit and sent half the batch to work with Jesse along with the cinnamon ones. What happened was interesting. People tended to take both cookies, but then settled into one camp or the other. The peanut butter verses the cinnamon cookie crowd.

What happened to my buddy Dishboy Scott is an entirely different matter. Scott doesn’t much like cookies, and he strongly dislikes peanut butter, but for some reason he decided to try one of the peanut butter toffee cookies. Astonishingly, Scott didn’t spit it out. Instead he declared them quite good, and after that first cookie couldn’t be persuaded to try the other kind.

Suddenly I began to see much more of Scott. Well briefly anyway. He raided my freezer one afternoon for “work cookies”. He came by to swipe a few pieces of pizza and headed directly to my freezer for “something sweet”, he carried Jesse’s work cookie leftovers home in a bag, and during strange times I find him in my garage freezer opening the now depleted bag of peanut butter toffee cookies.

So much for Scott hating peanut butter, but once their gone I’m certain he’ll make many fewer brief visits to my freezer.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup Jiff Peanut Butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup canola oil

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 ½ cups all purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup quick 1 minute oats

1 cup well crushed (but not to powder) baked lays potato chips, plain

1 cup lightly chopped salted peanuts

1 (8 ounce) bag Heath English Toffee Bits, Bits ‘O Brickle Toffee Bits

Instructions

1. Set the rack to the middle in the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl or stand mixer bowl cream together butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Add the oil, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and beat to combine. Add the oats, crushed chips, peanuts, and toffee bits and mix until incorporated.

3. With a standard (size 50) cookie scoop, scoop the dough onto the parchment 1 ½ inches apart. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes and let cool on the cookie sheet for a couple minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Repeat with remaining dough.

Makes about 50 cookies or more. I stopped counting.

Recipe & high contrast photograph by Laura Flowers

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chubbies

Martha Stewart and I regularly go to blows. I don’t know why, but I can’t make a cookie recipe of hers to save my life. This cookie began life as one of her peanut butter sandwich cookies. And as usual, my right eyeball began to pop out of its socket, and my eyebrows hit my hairline when I realized there was no way this recipe of hers was going to come together as planned. Again.

I barely restrained myself from beating this dough about the head and shoulders, once I realized something so crumbly didn’t have a prayer in hell of being rolled out as per the instructions. These were City Hall cookies, they had to be done, and I didn’t have time to make another batch. So I grabbed my mini cookie scoop and started packing in this crumbly mess of a “dough”, and turned it out onto parchment in half rounds. Not daring to disturb the mounds, I just baked them that way.

After the dough came out of the oven, I dipped the underside of a dry measuring cup into some sugar and flattened them slightly. What I was left with were the best darn little peanut butter oatmeal cookies I’ve ever tasted. Holy moly these little chubbies are tasty.

Martha Stewart got it half right. Or maybe I got it half right. Either way, I just want another cookie, or five.

Ingredients
2 cups old-fashioned oatmeal
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
1 cup dark brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 cup Jiff peanut butter (I love Jiff in cookies)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
Granulated sugar for finishing

Instructions
1. In a large skillet melt 1 stick of butter over medium heat. Add the oatmeal and cook, stirring often until toasted. About 5 minutes. Pour oatmeal onto a baking sheet and cool completely.

2. After the oatmeal has cooled, line a of couple baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. In a stand mixer add 2 sticks of butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar and beat on medium high speed until fluffy; about 2 minutes. Add the peanut butter and beat until fluffy again. Add the salt and baking soda and beat until combined. Add the oatmeal and beat until incorporated. Add the flour and mix until just combined.

4. With a size 60 mini cookie scoop, pack in the dough with your hands. Turn the dough out onto the cookie sheets about an 1 ½” apart. Bake for 9 to 10 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, set aside a small bowl of sugar and a dry measuring cup bigger than the cookies. Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven, dip the back of the measuring cup in sugar and flatten the cookies slightly. Re-dip into the sugar about every third cookie.

6. Let cool on the cookie sheets a couple more minutes, then move to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Martha Stewart recipe heavily adapted by Laura Flowers.

Steve’s Peanut Butter Cookies

A couple Decembers ago I was looking for a peanut butter cookie dough recipe for blossoms. My younger brother spouted this one out from memory. Since I never memorize anything I stood there in disbelief for a minute, and then asked him to repeat it again. Evidently he developed this recipe while working for a restaurant, and it’s the only peanut butter cookie recipe he will use.

1 cup shortening
1 cup Jiff peanut butter (I’ve been threatened to always use Jiff by the chef)
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups good quality all purpose flour

Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour or longer.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Cream shortening, Jiff peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar together in a food processor or mixer. Add eggs and mix. Add baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix again until incorporated. Add the flour and mix until just combined.

Measure out ¾ inch balls and press with the tines of a fork to make markings. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes and let rest on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Note: This dough makes great peanut butter blossoms. After rolling into balls, bake and let rest on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes before pressing in a Hershey’s Kiss or miniature peanut butter cup.