Sunday 24 July 2011

Miracle Cookies

Neither the lovely name nor the recipe was my idea - I got the recipe from Kay, who often comments here on my blog and who I have come to regard as a long-distance friend from the very pleasant email correspondence we have started some time ago.

Peanut butter is the main ingredient of these cookies, so you won't be able to serve them to anyone who is allergic to nuts. But there is no flour in them, so maybe you know someone who has to make sure their food does not contain gluten and they like peanut butter - then this is the right cookie for them :-)
















You need: 
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
some vanilla extract (it works without that, too; I used vanilla sugar, as you can see in the picture)
chocolate chips... if you have them and want them in your cookies.

I bought these so-called "chocolate droplets", they keep their shape even after baking, and as I so like the taste of peanut butter combined with chocolate, I wanted to add them. But the recipe works very well even without any addition like this.


















Mix everything together very well.
In my case, the mixture ended up greasy (of course; it is peanut BUTTER after all!) and crumbly like this:
















Roll out into balls and squeeze them a little flat on the baking tray, like this:
















I got twenty cookies out of this mixture. Next time I make them, I will add less (or no) chocolate chips; they made it a bit difficult to form the balls, crumbling off the mixture. Kay tells me when she does not have chocolate, she presses her thumb into the balls and fills the dent with jam - a good idea which I think I will try out, too, with one of my mother's lovely home-made jams.

Now bake the cookies at 350F (around 180C) for 12-15 minutes. Keep checking on them - mine were doing just fine, until I decided I had enough time to brush my teeth while the cookies were still in the oven...
 
























Was I cross with myself for having done that!!!
When I took the cookies out, they were too brown; not actually burnt to cinder, but not the way they should have been. So, do NOT go away from the oven, thinking you'll have plenty of time to do something else...!
Once you have taken the tray out, don't touch the cookies for at least 20 minutes, just leave them on the cooling rack. If you try to pick them up too early, they will simply fall apart. I did not try it, but I trust Kay's word on this :-)

















The finished cookies were still very nice - even though they did not look it... I took them to my parents' garden, where we were celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary. Not that many were left, just enough for me to have them the next day with my afternoon coffee.

So, the name "Miracle Cookies" has acquired a new meaning - it was a miracle my family dared eating them at all :-D

Thank you once again, Kay, for the recipe; next time, they will turn out the way they should!

12 comments:

  1. Dear Librarian,
    to eat your cookies was not that adventure or miracle. ;-) They tasted very fine. The few left-overs were only, because we also had rasperry-tarte and Bailey's-cake!

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  2. I'd say you had a very successful baking adventure! Keep up the good work!

    Mary

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  3. Thank you for showing these Miracle Cookies and the great photos of your baking! Honestly, they look really good even though they are homemade dark brown around the edges. (Not burnt, mind you, just homemade dark brown!) It is a good recipe for those on a gluten free diet, and for anyone else too, as long as they can eat peanut butter! Hey, did you know that peanuts (despite the name) are not really nuts but are related to the pea family?
    Peanut: Trailing plant which ripens its fruit called peanut, groundnut, earthnut or goober
    underground. This is from the 1903 dictionary that my Daddy got at a yard sale. He gave it to me. YAY! I think I love the thought of eating earthnuts. That word is obsolete but I like it.
    Thanks again... I feel so honored!
    Kay

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  4. Gigunelsa, thank you for saying that about the cookies :-) Everything we had on that day was delicious.

    Mary, I will - and my "kitchen adventures" will of course make it onto this blog as well.

    Kay, how nice of your dad to give you that dictionary! I guess you didn't know that the German word for peanut is Erdnuss, which indeed literally is "earth nut" :-)

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  5. Oh, I LOVE peanut & chocolate cookies, so it's great to see a gluten-free version. I wonder if I can use an egg substitute so my mum (who's vegan as well as allergic to wheat) could eat them.

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  6. Oh! I had no idea of the German word for peanut! Isn't that funny and interesting? I love language!!
    And yes, I love my Dad and that he gave me that old dictionary! It is like a treasure to me.
    Kay

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  7. You did a great job! Kay sent me over. I actually use a slight variation of this recipe with brown sugar instead of regular sugar and some vanilla and baking soda. I think they taste better and are less likely to burn than the others. Either way it's a great concept and so versatile. Sometimes I use creamy PB with no choc chips. Sometimes I use chunky PB with no choc chips. Sometimes I use either PB with choc chips (regular or minis ... minis work great) or chocolate chunks (only one or two needed per cookie. I sometimes use almond butter instead of PB, too, and I also sometimes use coconut sugar instead of brown sugar. When using coconut sugar, I press the cookies down with a fork; otherwise, they will not flatten out.

    Nice to "meet" you and find our blog!
    Shirley

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  8. Rachel, thanks for stopping by! My mum saw your comment here and has sent me a link to a German article on a cooking forum about using egg substitute. When I have time to look at it and translate it for you, I will let you know.

    Kay, one of humankind's greatest inventions (or discoveries?), language, isn't it!

    Shirley, you are so kind, thank you! I don't think I have ever come across coconut sugar; I know coconut milk, syrup and butter, but not sugar. Me being a coconut lover (esp. in combination with chocolate), it sound intriguing!

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  9. I wonder if this could possible work with a sugar substitute..........Like perhaps stevia....?

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  10. Kristi, I really don't know, and I must admit I have never come across the word stevia until you mentioned it here.

    Rachel, I have now had time to look at the article about egg substitutes on the German cooking forum my mum directed me to. Two suggestions strike me as the easiest and simplest:
    - half a banana equals one egg. In this case, I imagine it works really well, since peanut butter and banana tastes very nice together.
    - mix one teaspoon soy flour with two tablespoons of water and use that mixture just as you would use the egg. It is supposed to have the same properties when baking.

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  11. I think I shall make some of those in New Zealand as a change from the cornflake crunch I always make and have in store for the children (and Wendy and Martin!).

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  12. Hello GB, just make sure not to brush your teeth while you make them :-)

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