Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies...

When I go for a bar of chocolate to nibble on, it will most likely be the darker, bitter variety, rather than the lighter, more sweet chocolates. There are exceptions though, like Reese's peanut butter cups (weakness!) and the wicked Almond Roca we make every year for our holiday baking spree. I bought more milk chocolate bars than I ended up using making the roca this time and neither Jeff nor I have felt the urge to rip into them. I did, however, find an outrageously good use for them today in these Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies with Milk Chocolate Filling that we made for the Weekly Wednesday Treat Day.

When I had the peanut butter dough prepared for the cookies, the first thought that came to mind was how much the consistency reminded me of those Buckeye candies - supple, yet firm enough to hold its shape. Initially it did look like the dough was going to be quite wet and sticky to work with, but once I started scooping it out with our handy tablespoon cookie scoop, the shiny dough fell into place. The dough was soft, but I found I was able to pick up the balls of dough and roll them between my palms without any issues.

Baked in three batches (I found 16 dough balls fit just right on a regular sheet pan), I took the cookies out when they were golden and the centers were set, yet the color in the center was still a bit lighter than the edges. Warm, the cookies are faintly fragile, but a two minute rest on the baking sheet allows them to firm up enough to transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling without any breakage.

The smooth, decadent filling is made with, of course, milk chocolate, but since we're pushing a peanut butter theme here, there's also a large dollop of peanut butter added as well. Salt and a bit of confectioners' sugar are added to the bowl with those two ingredients and to bring them together to form the filling, we poured over bubbling hot cream, which almost instantly melts the chopped chocolate. It will be fairly liquid-y right off the bat, but as soon as you cool it down with a stint in the refrigerator, it will thicken to a delectable, creamy spreadable filling that was hard to keep my spoon out of! If you want to speed this process, you could set the bowl in a larger bowl filled with icy water, but just be sure to stir it fairly often so it cools evenly.

The cookies themselves are thick, crisp and a little crumbly with a distinct peanut butter flare. Sandwiched with the filling, we found them to be fairly sweet and rich made as is, but it wasn't so much that we couldn't have easily downed two or three in a short time, especially with a tall glass of cold milk on the side (and as much as we wanted to, we were good and stuck to one so Jeff had plenty to share tomorrow). Being just over 2 1/2" across, if you want to make them a more reasonable bite-sized treat, you could try reducing the amount of the dough per cookie to around a teaspoon or so and shave a couple minutes off the bake time. If you are a peanut fanatic and would like one more nutty imprint, chop up a handful of peanuts and roll the edge of cookies in them, letting the nuts attach to the filling.

Recipes
Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies with Milk Chocolate Filling