Last week I made the original version of these bars from Mom on Time Out. And I had a couple, very minor, complaints.
After cutting them up and putting them in the fridge, the oatey texture wasn’t even noticeable and the caramel amount was JUUUUUUUST right, as long as you ate the bars cold. What I’m telling you is that they came out even better than I thought. Winning.
Even though I liked the original version of these bars I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome this caramel filling would be with peanut butter cookies! So… of course I had to try it.I used my standard peanut butter cookie recipe, but cut it in half. I used the same filling from the original recipe. I thought these bars really needed a little bit of color, so that’s where the mini M&M’s come in. These came out a little greasy, but I think that’s because I sprayed the edges with cooking spray to keep the caramel from burning to the pan… I cooled them on the counter (in the pan), then cooled them in the fridge (still in the pan) before I cut them into the bars.
Overall these got a thumbs up, but I think the original recipe was better. I think I need to use a chewier PB cookie recipe.
Check out my version of PB Caramel Cookie Bars!
Happy Baking!!
-Hey Waitess
If you know me at all (or read last week’s baking post) you’d know that I loooove mint & chocolate, and peanut butter & chocolate. I also may have confessed my unholy love of Thin Mints… and admitted that there are a “few” boxes of cookies stashed in my apt.
That being said… I also had 2 boxes of Tagalong cookies that I bought for Hubs before he went on his “diet”. One box went into these chocolate cookies… another got stuffed into some peanut butter cookies (more on those later).
I knew I wanted to stuff these GS cookies into actual cookie, but I couldn’t settle on what dough to use. There are so many options… sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, fluffy pillow cookies, cakey cookies… you get the idea. I figured I should go with chocolate (fav flavor combos, duh). This dough recipe came from the blog With Sprinkles On Top, she stuffed it with OREOs! Um… delish.
I accidentally whisked ALL the dry ingredients together (including the sugar). Ooops. I wasn’t sure what to do, and I didn’t want to waste all those dry ingredients… so… I creamed the butter, the added the eggs, then the dry ingredients. At this point, I realized I forgot to add the vanilla. Oops, again. I just added it in with the melted chocolate chips.
The recipe says to divide the dough in half, then divide that into 28 or 14 balls. I did 28 because I was using a 1 ½ inch cookie scoop, and it seemed easier to put a little ball of dough on each side of the cookie, then wrap it… make sense?
The cookies still came out pretty awesome! And super yummy! Click here for my version of the recipe!
I also made a batch of my favorite peanut butter cookies… AND added 2 of my favorite Easter candies (Reese’s PB candy eggs, and Cadbury Mini Chocolate Eggs) to half of the dough, and stuffed Tagalong Cookies into the other cookies. Sadly, I forgot how much this dough spreads and even though the Tagalong PB cookies didn’t turn out exactly like I wanted them to, they still came out really tastey!
I halved the original peanut butter cookie recipe because I didn’t want a billion cookies!
Happy Baking!
-Hey Waitress.
PS I wrote this post yesterday but got super-duper distracted before I had a chance to post.
And I wasn’t sure I wanted to post it tonight, either… I’m from the Boston area and I never imagined that someone would want to plant explosives at the Marathon. 2 people are dead and the number of injured keeps rising. It hurts my heart to watch the footage and to hear the details on the news. I literally have no words for this tragedy, especially because it happened so close to my home.
At any rate, I wasn’t sure that it would be proper to post about food right now… but I decided it is. Baking (and writing, and running) really helps me clear my head and my heart.
So, I’d like to just take a second and send Love & Prayers to all the folks affected by what happened today in Boston. “Boston, you’re my home”.
peanutbutter chocolate chip pretzels cookies pre-baked
baked pb cc pretz cookies
close up!
soooo many cookies!
Wow. I’m soooo late! I made this set of cookies the weekend before Christmas! I’m pretty embarrassed that I’m only posting them now. In my defense, there was Christmas Eve & day (which I spent NOT counting calories and chowing down like a fat kid), and a snow “storm” which kicked my internet into slow (if it even worked) gear. So I have at least 2 excuses.
I made these Reindeer Cookies for the first time last year when we visited HUb’s family for Christmas. Only that time I used store-bought sugar cookie dough. Every once in a while I like to make “kid friendly” things so my friends/ family don’t start to think I’m a huge lush! Haha. The best thing about these little reindeer cookies is that everything you need you can get at the grocery store (especially if you use the store-bought dough)! I, however, made these from peanut butter cookies (extra flavor)!
Random Reindeer Cookie Notes:
I used a 1 1/2 inch cookie scoop, slightly flattened the cookies, then pressed the pretzels (lightly) into the dough.
bake them for approx 10 minutes, then flatten them slightly, and bake for another minute
cool completely… and using canned cake icing, “glue” a Nila Wafer to the bottom (for the muzzle), then “glue” a red M&M for the nose, and 2 colored ones for eyes! I might suggest using cookie icing because that will harden, the cake icing doesn’t.
I used the PeanutButter Cookie Recipe for both these cookie, leaving half plain to use for the Reindeer Cookies.
The other half of the Peanut Butter Cookie dough I used to make the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookies. Just add 1 cup peanut butter chips, 1 cup chocolate chips, and 1 cup coarse crushed/ or broken pretzels. Use the 1 1/2 inch cookie scoop again… then bake for 10minutes, flatten slightly and bake for 1 more minute!
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!
-Hey Waitress!!
Last week I decided to give the rest of the month a Cookie theme! I got the idea for the Cookie Cups from a tweet a foodie friend sent out about the version found on Sarcastic Cooking. Rather it came from Jen, of Juanita’s Cocina who was guest blogging. EEK! Confusing much? Just trying to credit all the right people. 😉 I did however use my mother’s Peanut Butter Cookie recipe, and the buttercream was adapted from Savory Sweet Life.
Starting with the dough… The original recipe my mom gave me said “makes 30 doz”. So I halved it. And I still came out with extra cookies, or maybe not enough buttercream. Hmmm… solution- decrease the cookie recipe by half (again), double the buttercream recipe, or eat regular peanut butter cookies (like I did)! I got about 36 “cookie cups”, and 64 cookies (24 that I made into “sandwiches”).
The Cookie Cups look a little brown… but I think it’s just because I use my phone to take all the pix. Or maybe they are a little brown and it’s just a hazard of the light greasing and large amount of dough?! Once they cooled off they hold their shape pretty well, no cookie cups falling apart here!
The buttercream is just the right thickness that if you don’t squish the cookies together too hard the sandwiches will hold up well.
With the exception of breaking my cookie scoop (again), my (only) mixing bowl not being quite big enough for all the dough, and my trusty hand mixer being on her (his/ its) last leg, I had a remarkable easy Sunday. Woot.
Happy Baking,
-Hey Waitress!!
You wanna see the recipe?
Unremarkable 