Bake Cookies Day !

December 18th is Bake Cookies Day so I decided to make December 19th Eat Cookies Day at my office. I sent out a flyer asking people to bring cookies if they so desired. I ended up make 3 kinds.

First, the easy ones, which I packaged in cute little Christmas patterned Chinese Take Out boxes. I gave these to my staff, along with a card and a restaurant gift card.

White Chocolate Dipped Fortune Cookies



Next were the:

Peanut Butter Double Delight



This is a really good and simple recipe - it was good enough to win the last Pillbury Bake Off - to me it tastes like a cross between a Snickerdoodle and a Peanut Butter cookie.

1/4 cup Dry Roasted Peanuts, finely chopped
1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup JIF® Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Confectioners Powdered Sugar
1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated peanut butter cookies, well chilled

Heat oven to 375°F. In small bowl, mix chopped peanuts, granulated sugar and cinnamon; set aside.

In another small bowl, stir peanut butter and powdered sugar until completely blended. Shape mixture into 24 (1-inch) balls.

Cut roll of cookie dough into 12 slices. Cut each slice in half crosswise to make 24 pieces; flatten slightly. Shape 1 cookie dough piece around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Repeat with remaining dough and balls.

Roll each covered ball in peanut mixture; gently pat mixture completely onto balls. On ungreased large cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart. Spray bottom of drinking glass with CRISCO® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray; press into remaining peanut mixture. Flatten each ball to 1/2-inch thickness with bottom of glass. Sprinkle any remaining peanut mixture evenly on tops of cookies; gently press into dough.

Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered.

Now... onto my favorite one:

Mrs. Field's Chocolate Dream Cookies



These are very good but are a bit time consuming - but oooh so worth the time. I don't believe I can post the recipe here because it is published in the Mrs. Field's Cookie Book and I assume, therefore, it is copywrited material. I love this cook book - I've made many of the cookies out of it but these are my favorite.

It is kind of like a butter cookie with a chocolate ganache filling. I do think there is some kind of misprint in the book though. It says to use a 2" round cookie cutter, which I do. It says it yields 2 1/2 dozen. I double this recipe EVERY time I make it and still only manage to get about 16 or so cookies and that is with the recipe doubled ! That means I would only get about 8 cookies with a single batch - not even a full dozen.

So I'm not sure if the size of the cookie cutter is wrong or if the yield is supposed to be 1/2 dozen instead of 2 1/2. Either way... if you ever make this - double the recipe - you'll be glad you did.