Peanut what? Peanut Butter!

Learning to bake in the UK has been an experience for me and learning how to substitute ingredients for other ingredients has been a sharp learning curve. It turns out there really is no substitute for American peanut butter. Peanut butter from the UK and other European countries does not melt when cooked (which was a unique experience for me when I was desperately trying to get it to melt the first time). The answer is to buy in bulk (this makes my inner hoarder happy), I found out that my local Costco stocks American supplies in mega sizes (hooray) including Skippy Peanut Butter. Sometimes when you find a product you’ve not had access to, all you want to do it literally sit in the middle of the isle with your hand in the peanut butter and it smeared all over your face trying to eat it! Ill be honest, this wasn’t me but its absolutely what I wanted to do it.  Its exactly what I was doing in my head whilst at waiting in the line to buy it.

Here are some recipes that I recently made using peanut butter.

Peanut Butter Bread/Loaf

Makes: 1 loaf and 1 mini loaf   Prep time: 10 mins  Cook time: 50 for large loaf and 25-30 for mini loaf  Total time: 60 mins at most

Required Ingredients:

Now how to make these yummy loafs:

1.Preheat the oven to 350º F. Spray a loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray, I use Fry Light spray.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar with an electric mixer until combined. 

3.Beat in the eggs. 

4. At this stage, it does look abit ‘gross’ but thats fine. Add the milk, sour cream and vanilla extract, mix briefly. 

5. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing with a spatula to prevent over mixing. 

Only mix just until just combined, you will see a few lumps and or some flour streaks. (this is half way mixed, if you have this much flour left, you still need to mix, it is NOT combined)

6. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 48-52 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. You can add toppings on it, like I did, I went for dutch sprinkles! You can use banana chips, chocolate chips or anything you fancy.

7. Check the bread 10-15 minutes before its due to come out, if the top of the bread is browning too much, tent the loaf with aluminum foil and then continue baking until the bread is cooked. Or if you are concerned about the top of the load being too dry, tent the bread as well.

8. Allow the loaf to cool maybe 15-20 minutes before removing from the pan and placing on a cooling rack.  Allow the loaf to cool completely before slicing.

 

Notes: This bread can be a bit dense, so absolutely have a drink available, a glass of milk works a treat! Also great if served with Nutella or more peanut butter.

 

Nutella Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Makes: 24 stuffed cookies and 3 spare peanut butter ones   Prep time: 3 hours Cook time: 11 mins Total time: 6 hours but best done over 2 days Level: Not overly difficult but time consuming and a bit messy

Required Ingredients:

1/2 cup (220g ish) Nutella
1 3/4 cups (210g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1 1/2 sticks (175g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup(100g) packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup (190g) creamy peanut butter
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Now how to make these double whammy cookies:

The night before you plan to bake! Do not skip this step, you will regret it and it will just add more time on later. The dough can also be made the night before and put in the refrigerator, this actually makes it much easier and less stickier to work with.

1. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof/parchment paper (I think aluminium would work too?). Using two teaspoons, spoon out 24 to 28 sized balls onto it and pop into the freezer.  I did 24 balls, as per below (as I ran out of Nutella) and then had enough dough that I just made 4 non stuffed cookies at the end.

2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and both sugars on medium-high speed until smooth (roughly 1 to 2 minutes).

3. Beat in the peanut butter until fully combined.

4. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla until combined. 

5. Now with a spatula, gently fold in the flour, salt, and baking soda. 

Using a spatula ensures that you do not over work the dough and combine until just combined.  

This is what it should look like, with small bits of flour let and not over worked.  I used a small ice cream scoop to ensure equal amounts of dough is used for each cookie.

6. Take your very frozen Nutella out of your freezer, I used a small ice cream scoop and put a ball of dough in your hand (at this point you kind of need to work quickly to stop the Nutella from defrosting).

7. Flatten the dough, so that its roughly the same thickness throughout.

8. Take a ball of the Nutella and put it in the middle of the cookie dough, and start to wrap the cookie dough around the cookie, to ensure that there are no gaps and the Nutella is completely covered.  ( I decided to cheat and only had my Nutella in the freezer for an hour, this didn’t freezer it and I made 4 cookies, I put it in for another 3 hours, this allowed me to make 9 cookies, so I was constantly waiting for the Nutella to freeze, do yourself a favour and let it freeze over night. I also learnt that letting the dough ‘harden’ in the fridge helped a lot too and made the dough less stickier and easier to work with).

9. The ‘finished’ cookie should look a bit like this, no obvious Nutella showing through.  Then just make the cookie slightly ‘prettier’ by rounding out the edges to give it more of a circular shape.  

10. Bake for approximately 11 minutes or until slightly browned. Allow the cookies to cool on the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve immediately for gooey Nutella or store them in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Enjoy a yummy stuffed Nutella Stuff Peanut Butter cookie on its own or with a nice glass of milk.

 

Remember to share with friends and enjoy!