Sunday, April 28, 2013

What happens when you mix peanut butter & Snickers?

You get cookies!

Snickers Peanut Butter Crinkles that is. I get in a baking mood by Sunday. I'm usually ready for a day at home and have a couple things in mind that I want to bake or make.

I've had a couple Snickers bars hanging around waiting for me to try out this cookie idea. I also needed a couple loaves of bread and had a recipe from the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

They have a recipe for "Soft American-Style White Bread". The recipe couldn't be simpler. I pulled out my favorite loaf pans and started mixing (actually I started with basic baking powder biscuits and homemade gravy). The recipe makes three 1.5 lb. loaves. I made two loaves and used the dough from the 3rd to make Parmesan bread sticks to go with spaghetti.

The bread sticks could be made with any bread dough recipe. Simply knead Parmesan cheese into the dough, press or roll pieces out into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick rectangles, cut in thin strips, then twist and stretch as you place them on your baking pan. I didn't time them, but I don't think they took more than 15 minutes or so at 350 degrees F. My husband ate 4 hot from the oven.

While the dough was rising, I mixed the ingredients for the cookies. I did cut the amount of sugar in the dough and I chose not to roll them in powdered sugar to make the crinkle look.


I chopped the Snickers bars into small pieces before mixing into the dough. This dough is meant to be chilled before rolling, but I just started rolling them right away. I pulled out my scale to measure the dough for even sized cookies.


Mine didn't spread much, so we were able to place them fairly close on the baking sheet. I went with 15g as a good size for a 2-bite cookie. I think these could also be rolled in wax paper, chilled and sliced like refrigerator cookies if a bigger cookie was wanted.

My youngest came into the kitchen following his nose with audible sniffs. I bribed him with a couple cookies to go outside and off he went, happily munching away. I also gave him the little bits of caramel that melted out of cookies where the candy was a bit close to the surface.

Snickers Peanut Butter Cookies
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup peanut butter, creamy, room temp.
3/4 cup brown sugar (light or dark is up to you)
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs, room temp.
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 large Snickers bars, chopped small
1 cup powdered sugar, for rolling
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Cream butter, peanut butter, brown sugar and white sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mixed until combined.
Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and Snickers chunks. Gradually add to butter mixture.
Chill dough for 10 to 20 minutes.
Roll a tablespoon of dough into a ball, then roll in powdered sugar. Place on prepared baking sheet and gently flatten.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees F until crinkly and edges set.

My hubby professes to loving Snicklers and I know he loves cookies, so I thought combining the two would be just the thing. I looked up several crinkle cookie recipes and read them before writing this recipe.

Even though I list a total of 1 cup sugar, I cut the sugar to closer to 3/4 cup total (since the candy should have plenty of sugar) without any problem.

I have a pair of silicone baking mats that I use to prep my baking sheets and I love them. If you don't have these, parchment lightly greased should work as well. I can't say enough about parchment and it's uses. I now keep a box in with my foil and Ziplocs.

I also recommend breaking your eggs into a measuring cup before adding to the butter mix to avoid getting shell bits into your dough. Instead of combining the dry ingredients, I tend to mix my baking powder, baking soda and salt right after adding the vanilla and just mix until completely blended. During the cooler winter months, I keep unsalted butter on my counter so it's always ready for baking. If I am baking several days in a row, I will also place my eggs in a bowl on the counter. You can give them a 10 second round in the microwave to take the chill off.

Using 15g of dough per cookie, I made about 60 or so cookies, not counting a sample cookie, some broken cookies and bribe cookies. These took 12 minutes in my oven, but each oven is different, so start with 10 and add more time if they aren't quite done enough. I have a thermometer in my oven to double check my temperature.

I also did not flatten my cookies and like how they retained some of that roundness. I also expected these to spread much more since I did not chill the dough. I just tried not to handle the dough to much.

Next time I make this recipe I want to make up some cinnamon sugar to roll them in.

Laura




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