Sunday, June 10, 2007

Sharing some cookies to let the neighbors know what's up...

Another 10 new recipes for us this week - I would choose the Butterscotch Drop Scones, Herbed Cracker Bread and the Pasta, Sausage and Bean Soup as our top picks of the week.

We were hoping to mosey on over to the neighbors and fill them in on the house sale before the big sign went up outside, but they plunged it into the yard much sooner than we thought! Since I wouldn't let Jeff go empty handed, I thought I would mix up some cookies for him to bring along when he went to share the news. These Peanut Butter Graham Cookies have a couple of non-traditional ingredients, at least to me, that you normally wouldn't find in a drop cookie.

While you have your normal flour, shortening, brown sugar and egg that you would typically find, you also have the interesting additions of sweetened condensed milk and honey graham cracker crumbs. Also giving the dough a special touch is just a few tablespoons of creamy peanut butter. To entice that peanut butter flavor out in the cookie dough, we tossed in a couple good handfuls of peanut butter M&Ms - however, if you used regular M&Ms I certainly wouldn't turn my nose. I don't always like nuts in cookies, but we went ahead and added a half cup of toasted chopped pecans - we really liked the nutty depth that they brought to the cookie and it also played off the nuttiness from the peanut butter. The texture is a little hard to describe here - they are crisp, but it is not a crunchy crisp - they have a firm texture and don't have the bend to them that soft cookies do. I guess I would say that the cookies are dense with a very nice chew to them. I didn't need to refrigerate the dough at all and I did have to slightly flatten the dough balls to get them to spread out a little more... the first couple of test cookies didn't get as wide as I would have liked. You can use Crisco for the shortening, but I prefer to use spectrum organic shortening (trans fat free) - I'm not sure if they would still get this great texture they currently have if you used butter instead, but if you do try it, you may need to refrigerate the dough before baking (this will help control spreading if needed).


6 comments:

  1. Joe - I'm sure your neighbours will be sad to see you go, but I'm glad that you and Jeff are not going to be leaving us in the blogosphere behind. Thanks for the reference to Spectrum organic shortening. I had never heard of it but will source it out.

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  2. Oh yum- those sound really good and different! I'm always on the lookout for new cookies to add M&M's to.

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  3. Ohhh, I'm sure I will be trying these. They probably won't make it to the neighbor's though (hehe). I'm sure that your neighbors are really sad to see you go - especially since they will no longer be getting treats like these!

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  4. Joe, my 6 year old just saw the picture of your cookies and said "yum, what are those". I told her and she ask if she could make them one day. She's really into cooking right now and the highest form of flattery is when the 6 year old wants to make your recipe!
    They do look and sound wonderful.

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  5. you are such a sweet neighbour! Good luck for the house sale.

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  6. Shaun - I've been using it for a little over a year now and really like how it works out in baking.

    Erika - Yes, just a tad different and very delicious!

    Deborah - Let me know if you give them a try!

    Tammy - they are certainly colorful!

    Mandy - Thanks!

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