peanut butter truffle cookies

Towards the end of my course, as the Summer holidays could be seen on the horizon, I started dreaming about how I would spend my hours & hours of time over the holidays. If you are a regular visitor here, you will have picked up by now that I love to bake. In my dreaming, I thought of all the things I could bake, & came up with little (ad)venture that would enable me to bake lots & keep some resemblance of a waistline:

The simple concept of this was that people I know on facebook (who live nearby) can order sweet treats - a simple way to satisfy my need to bake & people's desire to eat cake, and earn a little money in the process.

This week I had an order for some cookies which combined sweet & savoury, 'like peanut butter & chocolate' read the request. I knew the perfect recipe that combines these two ingredients & makes something beautiful. I had only baked this recipe once before for our Barn holiday a couple of years ago. I can't even remember why I thought I might like these cookies as I've tried Reece's Peanut Butter Cups before & not liked them. But, for whatever reason, I baked these glorious cookies for our holiday & loved them. To my delight, they kind of got forgotten about by the friends were on holiday with, as there was an abundance of delicious cake, so I may or may not have eaten the entire batch myself...Anyway, I am so glad I decided to bake them on that occasion, otherwise I might have been daunted by combining two ingredients that I love separately but not so much together, for someone else.

Peanut Butter Truffle Cookies

ingredients {yields approx 12}

125g / 40z dark chocolate 

150ml double cream

125g / 4oz unsalted butter

125 / 4oz caster sugar

125g / 4oz crunchy peanut butter

4tbsp golden syrup

1 tbsp milk (semi skimmed is fine)

225g / 8oz plain flour

1/2 tsp bi-carbonate of soda

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C / Gas mark 4 / 350F

2. Grease 2 baking trays & set aside

3. Make the ganache: Chop up the dark chocolate into small pieces & place in a heatproof bowl.

4. Put the cream in a saucepan & gently heat until it's very near boiling point. As soon as bubbles start to form, remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate. Give the bowl a little jiggle to help combine the choc & cream, then use a hand whisk to help the chocolate pieces melt completely. Set to one side.

5. Make the dough: Cream together the butter & sugar until fluffy. 

6. Add the peanut butter, then golden syrup & milk

7. Sift the flour and bi-carb into the peanut-buttery mixture and stir until combined.

Side note: If you have time, I'd recommend chilling the dough at this stage for 15mins or so to reduce the stickiness, but this is not essential.

8. Take a big chunk (roughly 2 tbsp's worth) of dough and flatten on greased tray. 

9. Place half a teaspoon of ganache on one side of the cookie and gently spread across that half.

10. Fold the cookie in half so the ganache is sealed inside.

11. Repeat until you've used your mixture & then bake for 10 - 15mins until lightly golden.

Leave to cool for a few mins on the baking tray before transferring to a wire rack.

Alterations: I made the ganache the night before baking to allow time for it to cool & set slightly. This made the process of filling the cookies with ganache less messy. I'd recommend going easy on the ganache as things turn very messy if you overfill the cookies.