This humble legume, the peanut, takes on different personalities in all kind of dishes from Thai curry sauces to the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When it comes to dessert, peanuts add a richness in often salty/sweet cookies. There are the classic peanut butter cookies with the fork embossed crosshatch on top, cookies with peanut and chocolate combinations and classics confections like the Ohio Buckeye.
In this peanut butter cookie, Mariposa Café’s Suzanne Mermelstein adds a sort of peanut brittle to the cookie giving it a nice caramelized peanut crunch. If you have not been to Mariposa Café yet, you are missing out. I love their avocado sandwich (the OG before hipster avocado strutted into town), soft salted pretzels, donuts, cookies and more.
Peanut Cookies, Mariposa Café
Begin by making the peanut brittle so it can cool while you make the cookie dough.
Peanut Brittle
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1/4 cup of water
- 2/3 cup of peanuts
Directions
- Spread peanuts out into one layer on a Silpat or parchment on a baking sheet.
- Cook sugar and water until it becomes an amber coloured caramel ( ~355°F). You can go by looks if you do not have a candy thermometer just make sure its a nice dark amber.
- Pour the caramel syrup over the peanuts.
- When the brittle cools, process it into a coarse grind.
Cookies
- 6 1/2 oz of butter (12 TBSP), softened
- 1 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 2 cups peanut butter
- 2 eggs
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 TBSP baking powder
- 1 1/3 cup of peanut brittle, coarsely ground
Directions
- Preheat oven to 325° F
- Cream together the butter, sugars and peanut butter.
- Then, mix in the egg.
- In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Stir in the peanut brittle.
- Spoon the cookies out onto a tray and flatten slightly.
- Bake for 12 minutes until the edges brown.
