Taste & Create - Magic in the Middles

This month's Taste and Create dish is so delicious! My partner for Taste and Create was Natalie of What's for Supper? I had a fun time perusing through her blog looking at all her delicious recipes. She has lots of fabulous looking desserts especially. There are several recipes that I found on her blog that I would like to make (such as Jewel Roasted Vegetables which she and her husband didn't enjoy but had me totally drooling).

The recipe I chose was Magic in the Middles, fun-looking chocolate cookies with a peanut butter surprise inside. Zaylee and I tied on our aprons and baked these up this afternoon. She enjoyed helping Mommy by stirring the dry ingredients, and helping to flatten the cookies with a glass. She especially enjoyed repeatedly sampling the peanut butter filling and the finished cookies!


Magic in the Middles
DOUGH:
1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I snuck in a half cup of whole wheat flour)
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup granulated sugar (plus extra for dipping)
½ cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup smooth peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg

FILLING:
¾ cup smooth peanut butter
¾ cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

Prepare dough: In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In another medium bowl, beat together sugars, butter, and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg, beating to combine, then stir in dry ingredients, blending well.

Prepare filling: In a small bowl, stir together peanut butter and powdered sugar until smooth. With floured hands, roll the filling into 26 one-inch balls (I skipped this step, and just spooned in the filling in the next step. In hindsight, it would have been easier to shape the cookies with balls of filling instead of spoonfuls, so don't skip this step).

Shape cookies: Break off about 1 Tbsp. of the dough, make an indentation in the center with your finger, and press one of the peanut butter balls into the indentation. Bring the dough up and over the filling, pressing it closed; roll the cookie in the palms of your hand to smooth it out. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.

Dip the top of each cookie in granulated sugar and place on prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Grease the bottom of a drinking glass and use it to flatten each cookie to about ½-inch-thick (Due to overeager helping, some of the peanut butter squished out the sides of some of the cookies. Merely an aesthetic issue - they still tasted great).

Bake cookies for 7 to 9 minutes, until they're set. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack (I discovered that mine worked better when I let them sit on the baking sheet for a couple minutes before removing to a rack. They were too soft at first and needed to harden a bit).

Yield: About 26 cookies (Mine made 33 with more peanut butter filling left over)


All in all, I was very pleased with having chosen this recipe. These delicious cookies are lightly crispy on the outside edges, and soft and chewy inside. The chocolate and peanut butter flavors complement each other very well, neither overpowers the other. Super delicious cookies! They were quite a bit more work than I tend to go for in cookies, but it was lots of fun with Zaylee to help me.