Banana Granola Peanut Peanut Butter Cookies

My apologies for my long absence from posting cookies and other sweets - I've been establishing my company, published a book, talking at conferences, and traveling the world...  in other words I've been neglecting my sweet tooth.

It's double daring me to make cookies of itself... (ok, I'm just curious to see how it bakes)

Earlier this week I read a tweet about a game changing availability of flavored peanut butter, obviously my first reaction was "Dude, I need to make this ambrosia into cookies", and so I did.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 cup banana granola peanut peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Directions:

Cream butter and peanut butter together. Gradually beat in the granulated sugar and brown sugar. Add eggs, and vanilla. Beat well.

Blend or sift together flour, soda, and salt. Add to creamed mixture and combine thoroughly.

Shape dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place onto parchment paper covered baking sheets, and press down with fork.

Bake in a preheated 375 F oven for 10 to 12 minutes.

Yield: 4 dozen cookies.

Ambrosia?

Baking with the flavored peanut butter had one deliciously disappointing side effect - all of the banana flavor baked off, however in the process the kitchen smelled of peanut butter banana bread for the better part of an hour.

O.O

Peanut Butter Banana Bread?!!!! 

I digress, the cookies were delicious. The granola and peanuts adds crunch to the cookie that I'd normally have to add myself by altering the basic recipe.

I hope to post a little more regularly in the future, it'll all depend on my travel schedule.

Hope you enjoyed this recipe.

Cocoa Chocolate Chip Cayenne Pepper Cookies

I've been really slow updating my cookie blog this year, for this I have to apologize.
My turn for Cookie night came around tonight, so here's my latest being effort: Cocoa Chocolate Chip Cayenne Pepper Cookies.
The recipe follows my regular Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, however to make them Cocoa-Cayenne I add two tbsp of cocoa powder, 1 tsp of Cayenne pepper, and one extra tbsp of milk. The baking process is the same. In the photos you can see the dark cocoa-cayenne cookies next to their vanilla cousins.

The cayenne doesn't really alter the flavour of the cookies, however they do leave a lasting heat. You'll definitely want to have a glass of milk on hand after having a few cookies ;)

Apple, Raspberry, and Banana Rugelach

I've been spending a lot of time on the road as of late, so I haven't had the same opportunities to experiment in the kitchen. So when my cookie night turn came around I fell back on my Rugelach recipe. This time around I didn't booze up the fruit fillings, instead I kept things naturally healthy using just fruit puree.