Today’s post is the first installment of an occasional recipe series that I will feature here, called Tea and Cookies!
Tea is such a versatile beverage: hot or iced; herbal, green, white, or black; caff or decaf; loose or bagged. There are even medicinal teas for colds, sick tummies, sleepless nights, or that “time of the month” for the ladies.
And who doesn’t love a cookie? I have yet to meet a cookie-hater. He or she would probably hate puppies and sunrises, too. 😉
I didn’t invent these recipes – some come from cookbooks, magazines, and my mom, who is a fabulous cookie baker and made so many tweaks to recipes over the years that they probably don’t look anything like the original. Any recipe I post has been tested in my kitchen. If it didn’t taste good, it won’t appear here.
Hope you enjoy them!
This week’s cookie: Peanut butter/chocolate
I thought I’d start with a super-easy cookie recipe I make for a few friends who can’t eat gluten. The recipe wasn’t specifically targeted for gluten-free folks, but when I realized there wasn’t any flour in it, I just made sure to select gluten-free versions of the other ingredients, specifically the peanut butter and chocolate bars. The recipe comes from The Cookie Bible, published in 2004 by Publications International, Ltd.
Simpler Than Sin Peanut Chocolate Cookies (makes about 2 dozen)
1 cup extra crunchy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla
6oz bar of dark or milk chocolate, broken into squares
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 deg F
- In medium bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar, egg and vanilla; mix well.
- Roll dough into 1-inch balls, place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.
- Bake 12 minutes, remove from oven and place a chocolate square in center of each cookie.
- Bake an additional 5-7 minutes, or until cookies are lightly golden around edges.
- Cool 5 minutes, then remove to wire rack to cool completely.
A couple of notes:
It is very important that the egg be room temp; the cookie dough doesn’t set up as well if the egg is cold (a good rule-of-thumb for most recipes, actually).
It’s okay for the chocolate square to mush the cookie when you place it; the additional baking time will fix that somewhat. I like to stand the square on an edge rather than smash it flat into the center, since the cookie is so small to begin with.
I know it seems weird that this could be a cookie when there’s no flour in it. But it really does work! And it’s delicious. 🙂
This week’s tea pairing: iced green/black medley
Peanut butter is a strong flavor, so we don’t want to throw in another strong flavor like fruit or mint. I would recommend a nice, basic iced green tea/black tea hybrid. Two-parts green to one-part black is my personal fave: it gives you the crispness and health benefits of green tea, but is grounded by the full-body classic “tea” taste (and caffeine) of black tea. Yum! For the uninitiated, here’s a WikiHow article on How to Make Iced Tea.
Got a favorite cookie recipe or tea you’d like to feature here? We love guest posts!
Until next time,
Kathy
I absolutely love peanut butter cookies. I mean, really, truly, love them. And – that is a new recipe – which means I get to have peanut butter cookies today! The tea combination (also a fan) sounds like an excellent chaser. Thanks for sharing these with us Kathy 🙂
You know, Gene, if I’d had to guess, I DEFINITELY would have pegged you as a peanut butter cookie fan! Let me know how they turn out! Have a great weekend. 🙂
OMG to DIE for! Even I could master those cookies…squeee! And I love the tip about the eggs because I would have totally ignored the direction on that one. LOL!! And the tea sounds delightful. Dr. Oz just did a great bit on iced tea – 4 varieties that sounded quite lovely – http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/metabolism-boosting-iced-teas – and he had these amazing pitchers that had like a center thing you could put fruit or herbs in to mix the flavor but kept the bits separate…maybe you could try these out for us?!?!?! LOL!!
WONDERFUL new series…can’t wait for more! Happy FRIDAY!
Thanks, Natalie – I’ll have to check out the Dr. Oz video! Love experimenting with iced teas. 🙂
Kathy – What a great idea!! I’m archiving this for the next time I have a cookie-crave 🙂
Cool, Margot! Nothing like a cookie to brighten your day, right? 😉
OMG to die for. i’m off to buy peanut butter
Hope you get to try it, Louise! Let me know how it turns out…
yes, how on earth can we live without peanut butter cookies?! Although, I must add that the only cookies I allow my self to bake any more, are chocolate chip cookies, and I only bake them at Christmas time because if I made them any other time of the year, I would devour the entire two dozen and end up looking like a blimp. As for iced tea, it’s my beverage of choice. And at the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf the green tea of the day was Cherry Blossom. OMG wonderful. Great post, Kathy!
Now that my kids aren’t little anymore, I don’t have nearly as many
excusesopportunities to make cookies. Christmas-time is numero uno!Ooh, two of my favorite treats. 🙂 I’d love to share a tea and cookie combo sometime. Thanks for the fun post!
I would LOVE that, August – just say the word!
No flour? That’s intriguing. But I adore flourless chocolate cake. Definitely worth a kitchen experiment…can’t wait to try it. Thanks, Kathy!
I’ve heard of flourless chocolate cake, and now I’ll have to try that, too! Let me know how your experiment works out, Debra! 🙂
Kathy, you had me cookies! I love peanut butter and chocolate. I just try not to eat ’em too often. But if you’re talking about tea, well that’s my thing. Green is my favorite. I hadn’t heard about a green and black tea combo before. I’ll have to try that. And iced, perfect for summer coming up! Thanks Kathy! 🙂