Thursday, July 31, 2008

Malted Milk and Peanut Butter Cookies (No, Not Together)

I've been baking cookies.  Surprise!

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I have some malted milk that I've wanted to use more of, so I found two cookie recipes that use malted milk.  I loved one and really don't like the other.  Here's the ones that are really good.  These are a yummy crisp and chewy cookie.  I used milk chocolate chips in these, instead of malted milk balls (like Whoppers).  The milk chocolate was perfect.  I found the recipe at www.ichef.com.   I halved the recipe that I was using and it made about 3 dozen small-medium cookies.  I think these would be really good with a vanilla malt shake.  Yummmm.  

Malted Milk Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon sweetened condensed milk (plan to then use the opened can of milk as I've done for another recipe)

1/4 cup plus 2 T. malted milk powder

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Mix together butter and sugars until combined.  Add egg, vanilla, condensed milk, and malted milk powder and mix well, but don't over mix.  Combine the flour, soda and salt in a small bowl, then add to wet ingredients and mix by hand just until incorporated.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment lined baking sheets.  Bake for 14 minutes for crispy cookies, or 12 minutes for chewy.  (Both ways are good!)

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The other malted milk recipe I made baked the cookies at 350 and they seem to have almost burned as I only baked them for the exact time the recipe stated.  I only baked 12 cookies and I think I'm going to make a bar cookie with the rest or something and I really liked how the other malt cookies baked and they were baked at a lower temperature, so I'll probably try that.  I had some m&m's and threw a few of those in just to separate the two kinds of cookies, although that wasn't really necessary, as they baked completely different.  The m&m's do add a nice "crunch" like crushed Whoppers would have.  The recipe for these can be found here at a site I found called www.best-cookie-jar-recipes.com   I only made a half batch.  The cookies aren't horrible by any means, I just don't like the way they baked, they are puffier, but still crunchy.  They may be better just baking for less time than the recipe calls for.   

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UpdatedI said I am going to bake the rest of these malt cookies in a bar and I did.  They still taste the same and baked the same, but now I'm done with them.

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Now, on to peanut butter, because we just can't get enough of those, huh!  I have the Mrs. Field's Cookie Book.  I've had it for years and years and used to make cookies from it often, but haven't for quite some time.  I also recently received an email about a copy-cat version of Mrs. Field's Peanut Butter Cookies.  I was curious, so I looked in my book and it was the exact same recipe.  These cookies are soft and chewy, but mine look like they flattened much more than the picture in Mrs. Field's book.  I added some extra flour after baking the first dozen.  Here is the recipe as I made it.

Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 large eggs (I used 1 egg and 2 tablespoons Egg Beaters w/touch of yolk)

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Skippy Natural)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (I used unbleached)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt with whisk.  Set aside.  Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars until well combined.  Add egg and vanilla until blended.  So not to over mix, add the dry ingredients and stir with spoon.  Drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment lined baking sheet.  Press a crisscross pattern on each cookie with a fork.  It is a bit sticky, so it works well to dip the fork in sugar first.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Cool a few minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. 

I think these cookies would be good for using as sandwich cookies with a creamy peanut butter filling and will try that next.

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Updated:  I went ahead and made up a quick filling and made these into sandwich cookies.  They are GOOD!  They are soft and I think next time the cookies should be baked a little longer to make them a bit more crispy and firm.  I didn't even really measure as I made the filling, but here's close to what I did.

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2-3 tablespoons milk (add a little more depending on desired consistency)

Mix all ingredients together and beat with electric mixer for 3-5 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.  Spread some on cookies and put them together. 

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6 comments:

Clumbsy Cookie said...

You've been bakng a lot these days! Great yummy looking brownies and cookies on all the last posts! The cookie dough brownies are really cool and I love the look of these peanut butter cookies!

Neen said...

These cookies look fabulous (!!) but where do you get the Malted milk powder?

Pamela said...

These both look good. Are those pastel M & M's...like from Easter? How on earth have you stopped yourself from killing that bag! I'm impressed. Anyway...nice cookies.

Cookie Madness said...

Smart move turning them into sandwich cookies!

Anne said...

Wow, those look awesome! I especially think the Peanut Butter sandwich cookies look amazing- nice job!

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