Peanut Butter Waffles

Waffles are, quite simply, superior breakfast foods. They have handy compartments for syrup, berries, or whatever other toppings you deem appropriate, for one. Unlike pancakes, it’s easy to keep a waffle fluffy and light while adding flavors to the batter. As much as I love gingerbread pancakes, they’re kind of dense for a pancake. A bit chewy, even. These peanut butter waffles, though? Not a bit. They’re crisp on the outside, moist and light in the middle, and seriously peanut buttery. Add a bit of cocoa powder and you may never eat anything else again. (Assuming, of course, that you understand that Reese’s candies are the best of all possible flavor combinations and should be emulated elsewhere whenever possible. If not, that’s all right. We just can’t be friends anymore.)

 

I adapted this recipe rather heavily from the Culinary Institute of America’s Breakfasts and Brunches recipe for buttermilk waffles. Their recipe contains no peanut butter. Also, I used goat milk instead of buttermilk. Feel free to substitute buttermilk or regular old milk for the goat milk if you don’t have any on hand, but consider keeping the goat stuff around in future. It’s tasty.

Ingredients (makes 8-10 waffles)

1 3/4 cups flour

1 t salt

1 T baking powder

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

4 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups goat milk

8 T room temperature butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

Directions 

Combine butter and peanut butter in a mixing bowl.

Mix until smooth.

Add goat milk and egg yolks.

Mix again. It will be messy.

Combine flour, salt, and baking powder in a sieve.

Sift them over the peanut butter mixture.

Mix the dry ingredients in gently, then add the brown sugar and mix it in, too. (note: brown sugar probably ought to have been added with the peanut butter and butter in the beginning. It worked out just fine this way, though.)

Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

Add the egg whites to the batter. Fold them in gently, leaving a few swirls of egg white throughout. Over-mixing will break all those lovely air bubbles you’ve just added for lightness.

Cook waffles using approximately 1/2 cup of batter per waffle, or otherwise if your waffle maker is bigger or smaller than mine.

Serve with a generous handful of Reese’s peanut butter chips and some honey.

Prepare to swoon.

These waffles are minimally sweet (before you cover them in candy and honey, that is), and extremely peanut buttery. Honey brings out the peanut flavor better than syrup, and a pile of peanut butter chips seal the deal. Mr. Blackbird doesn’t usually like waffles–normally I have to bury one under about a pint of blueberries before he’ll eat it–but he devoured these and went back for seconds. I know waffles aren’t the quickest breakfast food, but if you want to make a lazy weekend morning absolutely decadent, add these to your repertoire. They’re pretty much fantastic.

 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

Who doesn’t love chocolate and peanut butter? We all have those days when you run out of Reese’s cups and find yourself smearing peanut butter over a Hershey’s bar, right?

I mean, if that weren’t normal behavior I certainly wouldn’t be admitting to it.

But low-quality chocolate candy and overly sweetened peanut butter aren’t always going to cut it. Sometimes you’ve got to have cookies, homemade and piping hot. Thank goodness for this recipe from Picky Palate.

I took one look at the peanut butter-chocolate ratio and decided it was all wrong. Chocolate is great, sure, but I’d rather have just enough to add bitterness and complexity to the peanut butter, rather than drown out all that nutty goodness with a wave of cocoa. Even with the changes I made, I think next time I’ll amp up the peanut butter even more, but these cookies are delightful. They’re gooey and sweet and oh so chocolaty. Serve them hot with ice cream and you’ll swear you never need another dessert again. Until you start looking at recipes 20 minutes later, anyway.

Ingredients (makes about 3 dozen. Recipe adapted from Picky Palate.)

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

2 sticks/16 T butter

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar, divided use*

2 eggs

1 T vanilla

1 3/4 cups flour

1 t baking soda

1 t salt

1 cup cocoa powder

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips

4 Reese’s peanut butter cups (the original sized ones. One king-size pack, in other words.)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix the 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter with 1/2 cup of brown sugar and put it in the freezer. Cream the butter and remaining sugar (3/4 cup granulated, 1 cup brown) together in a large bowl.

Mix in the eggs and vanilla.

Pour the flour, salt, leavening, and cocoa powder into a fine mesh sieve.

Sift all the dry ingredients into the dough.

Mix the dough well. It’s very chocolaty.

Chop the Reese’s cups into approximate 16ths.

Add the chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and chopped Reese’s cups to the dough. Mix well.

Add the frozen peanut butter and brown sugar mixture in dollops.

Don’t use the mixer this time, just fold the peanut butter gently a few times with a spatula.

Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper. Place dollops (about 2 T each) of dough on the lined cookie sheets about 2 inches apart from each other. They’ll be sticky and misshapen. It’s okay. Lumpy cookies still taste nice.

Bake 15 minutes at 350°F, rotating the cookie sheets and switching their positions in the oven halfway through baking.

Let the cookies sit a few minutes before serving, or they will break in half and you will be obligated to eat the broken ones before anyone sees them. It’s in the rules. They are delightful on their own, with a few extra peanut butter chips for the peanut butter fiends in us all. . .

But they truly shine with a big scoop of ice cream. Even though I just used vanilla ice cream, it really brought out the peanut butter flavor and mellowed out the chocolate significantly. Plus, hot cookie+frozen ice cream=melted, gooey, tasty mess. One should eat all cookies this way.