Things I Make (for Dinner): Secret Recipe Club: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

Monday, July 7, 2014

Secret Recipe Club: Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

So.
When the form came out asking if I wanted to participate in the Secret Recipe Club for July, I filled it out saying yes. Why, I'm not quite sure. I live in a great denial about the fact that June for me when I would need to make said recipe is a month filled with report card editing, graduation, and me eating out and grasping at the shreds of my sanity as we wind down to the end of school. It's not that I don't like cooking, I just don't do it in June. I need to remember this for next year so I freeze some meals and keep my debit card from smoking like this year.
But if I hadn't said yes, I wouldn't have been assigned the wonderful blog of LeAndra, who tends Love&Flour. LeAndra and I have many things in common. We both like to bake, we both love chocolate chips more than lettuce, and we both watch The Game at the end of November.
I find it interesting that LeAndra is a Buckeye turned Gator fan. My experience of college football fans (and especially OSU fans) is that they have an almost visceral allegiance to their team for life. Case in point, J lived in Gamecock country for a while but paid for the ESPN college football package so he could watch U of M on Saturdays. He now does the same here in Canada, giving us the *big* sports package so he can watch the B1G 10 Network and College football when we're home.
In my married life, I have learned that college football is a religion, and Saturday is the day of holy obligation. J has started counting down until we're back at the Big House in our new seats that will be more in the end zone and less facing the setting sun. I am ignoring him because it means I will be back to school. Ahem. It's not time for football yet. Right. What I made.
I perused LeAndra's blog and had a hard time deciding between these cookies and chocolate cherry cookies. I actually bought everything to make both, but the flavour combination of chocolate and peanut butter won the day! The others come soon. What else would I do with a bottle of cherry lambic?
I present to you now Love&Flour's Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows:

Ingredients:
For the Dough:
1/2 c oil
1 c sugar
1/4 c maple syrup
3 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1-1/2 c flour
2/3 c + 2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
For the Filling:
3/4 c smooth peanut butter
2/3 c icing sugar
2 Tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
Method:
1. Make the Dough: In a large bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine oil, sugar, syrup, milk and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients to form a moist dough. Let rest in the refirgerator.
2. Make the Filling: In a medium bowl, beat together all ingredients to form a smooth dough. Refrigerate to firm up.
3. Divide the filling into 24 equal parts. Roll into a ball and refrigerate.
4. Divide dough into 24 equal parts. Roll into a ball and flatten into a disc. Place a ball of filling in the center of the disc. Wrap the chocolate around the peanut butter, sealing well. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Preheat oven to 350F. Bake cookies at 350 F for 10 minutes. Serve cookies warm.

From Love and Flour

The chocolate dough is really dark. It was crumbly, but held together when pressed. I put it in the fridge, and made the filling.

Both seemed really soft, so I put the filling in the fridge as well and made dinner. The filling had firmed up nicely, and I quickly divided it into 24 balls.

But the chocolate dough had become rock hard. I had to warm it between my palms to get it moving. This was an oily dough as well. But it was pliable when warmed.

I had some issues wrapping the dough around the filling. I finally adopted the technique of dividing off a third of the dough and cupping the two thirds around the filling before using the rest as a cap to close over the filling. I found the dough cracked a lot as I was wrapping it, and I was afraid the peanut butter filling would melt all over everything.

But as you can see, I was wrong. The filling would just poke through the cracks. I was also afraid these would spread like crazy, and was pleasantly surprised to discover that wasn't true either.