Sometimes you just want a cookie.

Ok, maybe not everyone gets that craving, but I do. It’s not often – usually I want cake or vegetables – but sometimes I want cookies. I got that craving this weekend, and I was too lazy to go to the grocery store, so I made peanut butter chocolate cookies.

Yes, I realize there is some irony that I was too lazy to go to the grocery store, but not too lazy to actually make cookies. To me, the store just seems like more effort.

I had to work with what I had (see above about the grocery) so I went with a basic peanut butter cookie. To that I added chopped German chocolate (again, had on hand) and made peanut butter cookies. These  actually came out really well – they are like the perfect cookie. Sweet and salty and just a touch goo-y.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

• 1 stick butter
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 ounces German Chocolate – chopped

Cream together the butter and peanut butter. Add the sugars and mix well. Add egg, flour, soda, salt and baking powder and mix. Add in the flour and mix until no streaks remain. Mix in the chocolate.

Form half inch balls with dough and place on cookie sheet. Refrigerate while oven heats to 375. Once oven is heated, bake for 10-12 minutes. Let set on cookie sheet before removing to wire rack for cooling.

Makes 2.5 dozen cookies

Kitty picture – just because 🙂

Over Spring Break I frantically wrote three papers and drafted a presentation for school. I wanted to get as much done as possible since I figured this month would be full of long hours at work and ACT testing. (I wasn’t wrong – I started this post two weeks ago) My schedule for April was suspiciously full. But as my boss commented the other day, I find my balance in the kitchen. So while I was trying to figure out how to phrase things, or which statistics I wanted to use, I managed to make a cake – Heath Bar!

I love Heath bars. The chocolate over the sweet toffee is just an almost perfect treat for me. Strawberry shortcake is better, but heath bars require no work on my end except finding them at the store. Much easier.

Chocolate cake isn’t my favorite, but I thought this cake had to be chocolate. It just wouldn’t work with a vanilla cake, so I found an old German Chocolate cake recipe and used the cake portion, leaving out the filling and frosting. I cut the recipe in half too – the original recipe calls for making three 9 inch round cakes to layer and I didn’t want that many. Cutting the recipe in half and using two  pans worked just fine – I just kept an eye on the cooking time and they came out perfect.

For the icing, I went with buttercream. I thought about going half cream cheese, half butter, but decided to go for straight butter as I wasn’t sure the tang of the cream cheese would work here. I added some caramel that I had to the butter while whipping it up and ended up with a nice base. It was still a little too rich for me, and a little too sweet, but overall it was fine.

To really get a Heath Bar cake I needed more than a chocolate cake and some caramel buttercream. I mean, those would be fine, but they wouldn’t be Heath Bar cake. So I crushed several mini Heath Bars and sprinkled the pieces both between the layers and on top of the cake. There you have it – Health Bar Cake. This wasn’t my best cake ever, and it certainly wasn’t the chocolate pie, but it worked and gave me a chance to play in the kitchen.