Zazu’s Nudder Budders (Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies)

Peanut butter cookies with peanut butter filling. Homemade and so much better than Nutter-Butters. And I adore those so that's really saying something! 

Last Monday I had a company spouses’ potluck lunch to which I had been kindly invited.  But first, there was my new ladies Bible study, which meets on Monday mornings, so I thought the best the lunch plan would be to bring something sweet that wouldn’t require reheating.  This was one of the first recipes I tabbed in Fried Chicken and Champagne because as a child, I adored Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies.   A homemade version seemed like a great idea.  I halved the original recipe and still got a nice plateful of more than two dozen filled cookies. 

(If I had only realized that higher-level math would be involved in halving the recipe for posting here, I might have reconsidered.  While I could take the amount 1 1/4 cups of peanut butter and happily mix in half of 1 cup which equals 1/2 cup and then half of 1/4 and mix in 1/8 cup, it didn’t seem very professional to make you all do that too.  So I had to add fractions!   No comments – that is higher level math for me. : ) I will not make you do math if you want to make the original recipe so I will add a little note at the bottom with the original amounts.  To my fellow math phobes, you are welcome.  And I hope you have a 1/8 cup measure like I do.  Or a scale.)

Ingredients for the cookie dough

5/8 cup (1/2 +1/8 cup) or 155g peanut butter

1/4 cup or 55g butter

1/8 cup or 25g brown sugar

3/8 cup (1/4 + 1/8 cup) or 85g sugar

1 egg

2/3 cup or 80g flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

Ingredients for the filling

1 1/2 cups or 375g peanut butter

2 cups or 250g powdered or confectioners sugar

3/4 cup or 175ml cream

Method for cookies

Cream together your butter, brown sugar and white sugar.   Add in the peanut butter and beat again.

Add in the egg and beat until thoroughly mixed.

Add in the flour, salt and baking soda and beat again.  

Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Using two pieces of parchment paper, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch or a little more than 1/2cm thickness.  My brown sugar had lumps that I couldn't seem to get rid of.  Your dough will probably not be speckled.  I told myself the specks add character. 

Remove the top piece of parchment and cut the dough with your cookie cutter, flouring it lightly first with each cut.  As you can see, I only had a glass.  Those cookies looked way too big for how rich they were going to be when filled so I cut them in half with a sharp knife.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 325°F or 165°C.

Pop the whole parchment (on a cookie sheet or tray or other flat surface) in the freezer for about 10 minutes.  This makes the cookies much easier to remove in one piece.

Transfer the cookies to another piece of parchment on a cookie tray.  Bake for 13-18 minutes or until golden.   (Mine took 13 minutes.)

Continue rolling and cutting and freezing and transferring the cookie dough to a parchment lined baking tray until all the cookies are baked.  Allow them to cool.

While they are baking, you can make the filling.

Method for filling

Cream together the powdered sugar and peanut butter until very smooth.

Add in the cream, while beating.  Set aside.

Give your helper the empty plastic peanut butter jar to clean out. 

Check out that long pink tongue. Very impressive. 

Once the cookies are cool, spread them out with one half up and one half down.  Using a spoon and knife, heap the filling on the upside and spread gently.  Add the downside cookie on to the top to complete the sandwich.  ( I tried to put a generous amount on each, but I still had quite a bit of filling left over.)

There were 27 filled cookies in all. 

 Enjoy with a cold glass of milk!

Afternote:  The original ingredient amounts

Cookies

1 1/4 cups or 310g peanut butter

1/2 cup or 110g butter

1/4 cup or 50g brown sugar

3/4 cup or 170g sugar

1 egg

1 1/3 cups or 160g flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Filling

3 cups or 750g peanut butter

4 cups powdered or 500g confectioners sugar

1 1/2 cups or 350ml cream

Crispy Roasted Fishcakes Wrapped in Bacon

Whenever we move houses, there are two books that come with me, in the suitcase, because I wouldn’t trust them to the shipment and I might need them right away.  This was especially true before the days of internet.  (And often the first weeks in a new home are like the days before internet.  We were fortunate here to have internet within a couple of days of moving in.  That doesn’t happen very often, believe me!)  My two essential books are the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, 1980 edition and my own binder full of personal, many irreplaceable, family recipes, collected over the last 30-something years.

This move, a couple of extra books joined that treasured literary pantheon:  Fried Chicken and Champagne and Jamie’s Great Britain, because they were much salivated over Christmas gifts and I couldn’t bear to put them in the shipment and not see them again for six weeks.  They have both been well-thumbed this last week and a half and now are duly bookmarked with sticky tabs. 

So many recipes I want to try!

Here, then, is the first attempt from my two wonderful gift books, a recipe adapted from Jamie.

Ingredients

100g or 3.5 oz smoked salmon

60g or 2 oz smoked herring fillets

(or 160g or 5.5 oz smoked fish of your choice – Jamie recommends just salmon or salmon and trout.  The herring fillets were a bit strong so I will probably try this again with just salmon.)

2 green onions (or more if yours are skinny)

Knob of butter 

Sea salt

Black pepper

340g or 12 oz potatoes

2 large eggs

1 small lemon

Handful celery leaves or flat leafed parsley

Handful plain flour

2 oz or 60g of breadcrumbs or 4 slices dry sandwich bread

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Olive oil

4 slices of bacon

Method

Cut the root end off of the green onions and slice them finely.  Sauté with a knob of butter, a drizzle of olive oil to stop the butter from burning and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Peel the potatoes and cut them in cubes.  Boil them in salted water until tender and mash-able.

Meanwhile, chop the smoked fish with a big knife.  Sure, you can do it with a small knife but it is not as satisfying as rocking a big knife under two hands. 

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and mash them and leave them to cool a bit.

Chop your celery leaves or parsley.

Put your breadcrumbs (or four slices of sandwich bread) into the food processor with 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper.   Drizzle in a little olive oil while the thing is whizzing around until you have rough, ever so slightly moist breadcrumbs.

Break one egg into a shallow bowl.  Break the other egg and let the white fall into the same bowl.   Add the yolk to the cooled potato and mix thoroughly.

To the potatoes, add the fish, the green onions, the zest of your lemon, juice of half of your lemon and the celery or parsley.  Mix thoroughly.

Now divide your potato/fish mixture into four equal balls and shape them into patties.  Whisk your egg.

Now for my favorite part.  When I can add bacon to a recipe, I’m happy.  Spread a piece of cling film on your cabinet.  Add your bacon slices and top with another piece of cling film.  Using a rolling pin or wine bottle, roll your bacon to stretch it into longer pieces.   This really works!

Using your hands, lightly flour the patties and then put them into the egg.  Both sides.  This is going to get messy so don’t even try to keep clean.

Next pop them into the breadcrumbs and coat both sides well.  Return the patties to plate.

After all four are coated in breadcrumbs, wrap each one with a slice of bacon and secure with as many toothpicks as it takes.

Put them in the refrigerator until you are ready to cook them.

To cook:  preheat the oven to 425°F or 220°C.  Put the baking pan in to heat up.   When the oven reaches temperature, drizzle the pan with olive oil then put the fishcakes in the pan and drizzle a little more olive oil on their tops and bake for about 15 minutes. 

Remove from the oven and turn the patties over.  Cook for five or 10 more minutes or until they are crispy and browned all over.  

Serve with wedges of lemon.

Enjoy!

Addendum:  I am adding this post to the #Cooked in Translation blog hop, so just a little information about that. The concept is simple:  Once a month on the third Wednesday we interpret a classic international dish through the lens of our own or another culinary tradition.  See who else has taken the challenge and add your own fishcake link below.  You can find the rules here.

End Piracy, Not Liberty

This is not my usual post.  These are not usual times. 

As a writer, I have a vested interest in keeping copyrighted material protected.  But I am more horrified by the specter of censorship.  Accordingly, I am reposting information from Google and a link to their page so that you might join me in letting the US Congress know that you, too, are against censorship.

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

Please follow this link and sign the petition. 

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/