Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter has definitely been a food item that has grown on my over the past year. I never really liked it at all, in actual fact, I used to hate anything that tasted like nuts. However, since I found some in the kitchen cupboard and started experimenting with what it goes with, I figured that the spread literally goes with anything from apple slices to a piece of toast. I've also already done a few other blog posts based on peanut butter which are: Peanut Butter Granola Bars and Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Blondies. 

I'm excited to share this recipe with you as these cookies almost remind me of the kind that you'd imagine to have with a glass of milk as a kid, or the kind that you'd leave out for Santa Claus on Christmas eve.

You can make this recipe flour free if you wrap the dough up and put it in the fridge over night. This will make the dough go harder because the sugar soaks up all the wet ingredients. However, if you can't be bothered to wait that long for some cookies, you can add in around 125 grams of flour.

Ingredients..

- 1 large egg

- 200g peanut butter

- 150g brown sugar

- 50g granulated sugar

- 2 tsp vanilla extract

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- 125g flour

Let's do this!...
1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 4.
2) Combine all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
3) Using your hands, roll out 8 golf ball sized cookies and place them on a lined baking tray. 
4) Bake in the oven for 8 minutes, until they begin to turn golden brown and are firm on the edges. 
5) Allow the cookies to cool for about 10 minutes on the tray before removing. 

I hope you enjoyed this baking post, be sure to stay around for another next week! :) 

Becky x

Sugar and Spice Halloween Biscuits

Since this week is Halloween week, I thought I'd throw in an added bonus baking post for you all. Like my other Halloween post, I got the inspiration from Pinterest but added my own twist to it. These biscuits are easy for anyone to bake and make about 32 biscuits.

For the biscuits...

- 250g Plain Flour

- 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

- 1/4 tsp Ground Allspice

- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

- 125g Soft Brown Sugar

- 125g Butter

- 1 Beaten Egg

Method...

1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 4. 

2)Sift the flour, spices, baking powder and sugar into a bowl. 

3) Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. 

4) Stir in the egg and then mix together with your hand to form a soft dough.

5) Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it's a few millimetres thick.

6) Using cutters of your choice, cut out as many shapes as possible from the dough. 

7) Re-knead and re-roll the dough trimmings to cut out more shapes.

8) Put the biscuits in the oven for 15-20 minutes until they're lightly browned. 

For the decoration you'll need...

- Icing Sugar

- Water

- Orange Food Colouring

- Black Food Colouring

Method...

1) Sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add a teaspoon of water and begin to mix together. 

2) Keep adding water until the mixture turns 'gloopy'.

3) Make two other small bowls of icing sugar, but slightly thicker. 

4) To one of the thicker mixtures add orange colouring and black colouring to the other. 

5) Put the orange icing into a piping bag with a small hole and pipe around the edge of the biscuits. 

6) Fill in the inside of the orange outlines on the biscuits with some white icing, using a teaspoon.

7) Put the black icing into another piping bag with a small hole and write out Halloween words such as 'boo!' and 'eek!' onto the biscuits. 

I hope you enjoyed this bonus Halloween post, stay around for more in the future! :) 

Becky x