Peanut butter crinkles

 

It being the first proper day of school for my younger son, I wanted to make a little treat for him, when he comes home. And my older boy is very fond of my bakes too. 

I fancied making something with the peanut butter. There was a jar of SKIPPY peanut butter choc chip swirl in the latest Degustabox. If you haven't seen it yet, it's the classic peanut butter with chocolate chip pieces. It's smooth and creamy, and if you like a peanut butter and chocolate combination, then you'll enjoy it very much.

I have bookmarked a recipe for peanut butter crinkles in The Big Book of Beautiful Biscuits (The Australian Women's Weekly) a while ago. I have adapted it, making minor swaps and adjustments. 

Peanut Butter Crinkles (makes 16)

Ingredients:

110g butter, softened

100g sugar (I used a 50/50 mix of caster and raw cane vanilla sugar, the original recipe asks for sugar and brown sugar)

80g peanut butter (SKIPPY peanut butter choc chip swirl)

a dash of vanilla essence

zest of 1 lemon + 1tsp lemon juice

240g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

Cream together softened butter with sugar and peanut butter, add lemon zest, lemon juice, vanilla essence, flour and baking powder and mix well, using a fork. You might need to use hands for the cookie dough to get less crumbly and more elastic.

Pinch blobs of cookie dough, the size of big walnuts, roll them and then flatten into discs. Place the cookies on the greased cookie tray. Using a fork, make a crosswise pattern on each cookie.

Place the tray in the oven preheated to 180C and bake for about 15 minutes.

Take the tray out and carefully place cookies on the cooling rack. They are quite fragile at this stage, soft and crumbly. 

These are short biscuits, not dissimilar to shortbread.

The chocolate flavour was quite subtle, as the chocolate chips have dissolved during the cooking. I think adding extra chocolate chips for a more pronounced chocolate kick might be a good idea.