When it comes to peanut butter and chocolate, I think you can divide people up into roughly two groups: those who like it and those who are wrong. Peanut butter and chocolate is one of the best flavour combinations EVER invented. Yes. Yes, it is – don’t even pretend like it’s not. There is something so delicious about the salty peanutty flavour mixing with the sweet taste of milk chocolate that is just to die for. Maybe you had to grow up eating Reese’s peanut butter cups to like it — or maybe there is just something wrong with you.

These cookies are a great example of the versatility of the PB and chocolate combination. Chocolate buttercream is sandwiched between two chewy oatmeal peanut butter cookies to make pure peanut pleasure (ooo! Alliteration!). I’ve called them cookie ‘bites’ because they are actually quite petite. Conscious of the fact that when you eat a sandwich cookie, you are actually consuming two cookies, I decided to make them quite small so as not to overwhelm my friends with lower PB and chocolate tolerances.

The cookies themselves are chewy, with a strong peanut flavour. I love the addition of the oats to the cookies; like the ‘I want to marry you’ cookies, the oats make them chewy, yet sturdy. I also used crunchy peanut butter, which gives them a really nice texture. The only thing I would change is next time to use either a milk or dark chocolate ganache (depending on whether or not I was feeling like a kid (milk chocolate) or a grown up (dark chocolate)). I think that a ganache would suit these cookies better, rather than a buttercream. The buttercream is delicious, but I would prefer the even stronger chocolate flavour of a ganache.  I’ve included the buttercream recipe below, but feel free to experiment with your own fillings!

The original recipe was meant to make 4 dozen cookies. I got over 100 of the wee things! As I said before, I deliberately made my cookies small, so feel free to halve the recipe or make your cookies bigger. The icing recipe will also give you lots of leftovers, so if you’re thinking of making a half recipe, I would definitely halve the icing recipe as well.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Sandwich Cookie Bites

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose/plain flour
• 1 tsp baking soda (bicarb of soda)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup of butter
• 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups oats

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 175C/350F. Line two cookie sheets with baking parchment.
2. Cream together the butter, white and brown sugars, and peanut butter.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
5. Stir the flour into the peanut butter by hand, mixing until fully incorporated. Stir in the oats.
6. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto the prepared cookie sheets and flatten with your hand so they are just under 1cm thick. The cookies will spread out a bit, but not very much. There is no need to chill the dough beforehand.
7. Bake for 7 minutes. Don’t be tempted to overbake them! They will not look ‘done’, but trust me, take them out anyways! Cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 180g semisweet/plain chocolate, chopped
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a bain marie (I chose the microwave option!). Set aside.
2. Cream together the butter and icing sugar, gradually adding the icing sugar.
3. Beat in the milk and vanilla extract.
4. Gently fold the melted chocolate into the butter mixture. Beat on high for an additional 1-2 minutes until you have lusciously smooth and fluffy chocolate buttercream.

Assembly

1. Pair all the similar sized cookies. If you are lucky enough to have an odd number, you are obligated to eat the leftovers (quality control right?)
2. Fill a piping bag fitted with a medium sized round tip (e.g. Wilton #12).
3. Hold the piping bag perpendicular to the cookie with your tip just above the centre of the cookie. Keeping your hand still, apply pressure to the bag and squeeze out about 1 1/2 tsp of icing per cookie. Release pressure before lifting up the piping bag.
4. Place the top half of the cookie on top and gently press down so the filling moves out towards the edges.