As an unabashed peanut butter addict who frequently can be caught eating spoonfuls of the sweet and salty goop directly from the jar I am by default also a fan of Nutter Butter cookies. This recipe caught my eye quite some time ago and I found it yesterday while browsing through my extensive collection of recipes that I’ve saved on delicious. If you haven’t already begun using an online bookmark organizing service then I would highly recommend trying out delicious. It’s especially useful for storing and categorizing recipes that you stumble across online and would like to try at some point in the future. It also reduces the need for you to print endless pages of instructions, that you’ll inevitably lose, and save a few trees.
Anyway, back to the cookies. My first observation post baking and tasting is that they are absolutely huge! Too big almost. Of course, this could also be viewed as a positive as you’ll be so stuffed after sampling one that you wont have any desire to go back for a second round. I do think that the next time I prepare these sinful nutty treats I’ll use the smaller 1 inch ice cream scoop to shape the dough. A more bite sized Nutter Butter knock-off would probably be slightly easier to handle in social situations.
I’d like to point out that the dough was not very thick after I mixed it up. The original recipe did not call for chilling the cookie batter but from experience I knew that it was much too thin. Had I cooked the cookies at that point they would have spread much too much and made a big unattractive mess. So I chose to chill the bowl of dough for about an hour. This helped the batter hold its shape and produced nicely rounded cookies. Be sure not to overcrowd your cookie sheet though. Twelve at a time is all that I’d recommend prepping.
An additional alteration that I made to the recipe was to double the amount of filling. I’m a firm believer in the art of overdoing things that are stuffed. If you’d prefer a less thickly filled cookie then reduce the amounts back to their original state. In total this recipe used 6 sticks of butter. Just thinking about that makes me feel fat so I froze almost the entire batch so I can give them away at a later date. This is definitely a cookie that begs to be shared, unless of course you enjoy running eight miles a day in order to burn off your cookie sinning ways.
Homemade Nutter Butter Cookies
Adapted (and slightly altered) from the Bouchon Bakery’s “Nutter Butters” recipe originally published by The New York Times.
Yield: 24 large cookies
For the cookie dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons baking soda
1 pound (4 sticks) butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter, preferably Skippy
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
For the filling:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 cup creamy peanut butter, preferably Skippy
3 1/3 cups confectioners’ sugar.
For cookie dough: preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and baking soda; set aside. Using a mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and peanut butter. Add sugars and beat at medium speed for 4 minutes, scraping down bowl twice.
At low speed, add eggs and vanilla. Add flour mixture and beat at low speed until well mixed, frequently scraping down bowl. Add oats, and mix well. (Erin’s Note: Very important! Chill the batter for up to one hour before baking).
Using an ice cream scoop 2 inches in diameter, place balls of dough on parchment-lined baking sheets at least three inches apart. Bake until cookies have spread and turned very light golden brown, about 10 – 12 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool and firm up, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely before filling.
For filling: using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, peanut butter and confectioners’ sugar until very smooth.
To assemble cookies, spread a thick layer on underside of a cookie. Sandwich with another cookie. Repeat.
