Peanut butter, bacon and dark chocolate cookies and chocolate whoopie pies: gluten free goodness

Now that’s a blog title I never thought I’d write!

The cookies were polarizing. I mean. Come on. Peanut butter, bacon and dark chocolate??

A little bit greasy, but the flavours were fabulous. They were made for craft night a few weeks ago. Rory devoured the leftovers. I might have helped a little bit too.

Peanut butter, dark chocolate and bacon cookies

recipe from Joy the Baker

• 1 cup chunky or smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 slices of bacon, cooked, cooled and coarsely chopped
• 1 large handful dark chocolate pieces

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 °C. Line trays with baking paper.
2. In a medium bowl, combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined. Add egg and baking soda and mix until well combined. Fold in cooked bacon and chocolate pieces. That’s it. It really is that easy
3. Roll into large walnut sized balls before placing on the baking tray and squishing to flatten slightly.
4. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for five minutes.

The whoopie pies were not such a hit, but this was mainly the fault of the filling because the cakey-cookie part of them was delicious. The filling was too sweet and didn’t have enough flavour. Easy to change this though: Even a teaspoon or three of instant coffee would make a big improvement.

 

Chocolate whoopie pies

recipe from Taste

• 125g butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups gluten-free plain flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Filling (add instant coffee or orange zest or something else to lift the filling out of blah)

• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 3 large baking trays with baking paper.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition
3. Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl.
4. Add half the flour mixture to butter mixture. Stir to combine. Add half the buttermilk. Stir. Repeat with remaining flour mixture and buttermilk until just combined.
5. Spoon batter in a large piping bag fitted with a 1cm plain nozzle. Pipe 3cm wide rounds onto prepared trays, 5cm apart, allowing room for spreading. Stand for 15 minutes. The recipe said to pipe 32 of them. We had lots more than this
6. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until tops are firm. Cool on trays.
7. Make Filling: Using an electric mixer, beat butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in icing sugar and cocoa. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 2cm fluted nozzle. Pipe filling onto 16 rounds. Gently top with remaining rounds.