When I was but a wee lad my favorite store-bought snacks were Oreos (and this was long before any of that Double-Stuff business), and Drake’s Funny Bones. While Oreos in a multitude of varieties are still with us, sadly, Drake’s the makers of Yodels, Ring Dings, and Devil Dogs stopped producing my childhood addiction years ago. Everyone knows what an Oreo is, but for those who’ve never heard of Funny Bones, they were sort of like a chocolate Twinkie that had been filled with peanut butter cream, then dipped in melted milk chocolate.
To be honest, if I had one now I’d probably gag on it due to its overt sweetness and weak, milk chocolate flavor (I am decidedly a dark chocolate kinda guy), but as I kid….I gotta tell you, they were the bomb!
I developed these cookies for a guest post I wrote a while back for Maria at Sift & Whisk while she was "out" on maternity leave. When she approached me and asked if I'd be willing to help provide content for her terrific blog in her absence, my mind immediately raced back to the treats that I had loved as a young kid. While I may one day cough up the dough for a cake mold that would allow me to bake my own Funny Bones, and work up a new and improved “adult” version of the treat, for the guest post I decided to marry these two icons from my past into one seriously delicious cookie. It is one that I hope Maria will whip up for her little kidlet when he is old enough to develop his own sweet addictions.
For such pretty little things, they are super easy to make, and let’s face it, who doesn’t like chocolate and peanut butter together. The dark chocolate sablé cookie dough is a breeze to work with, and there are no mad piping skills required to dollop the peanut butter cream on the bottom cookie of the sandwich. In fact, when the youngin’ is old enough to wield a pastry bag, this would be a great mother-child recipe for Maria to prepare with her little one.
A little kid with a full piping bag….I’m smiling just thinking about it!
Soooo…as I promised last week, here is the recipe for these amazing Oreo knock-offs. They may be a bit fragile to ship as part of a holiday cookie swap, but don't fret, one bite of these and you won't want to share them with distant friends and relatives anyway. ;-)
Cheers – Steve
Peanut Butter TKOs
Ingredients
for the cookies:
- 1 1/2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder (I use Vahlrona)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 15 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3/4" cubes, at room temperature
for the peanut butter cream:
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups peanut butter (smooth or chunky, your call)
- 3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
Instructions
For the cookies:
- In the bowl of a standing mixer combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt, and mix on low speed. With the mixer running, add the butter, a piece at a time. The mixture will be dry and sandy at first, but over 2 minutes, will form pebble sized pieces that start to cling together.
- When it starts to pull together in large clumps, stop the mixer and transfer the dough to your work surface.
- Heat the oven to 350℉ and line 2-3 cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat mats.
- Divide the dough in half and gather each half to form a ball. Roll each piece of dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper to approximately 1/8" thick. Using a fluted cutter, cut into rounds. Remove any scraps from around where you’ve cut the cookies and save it all to be rerolled later to make more cookies. If the dough is a bit warm and feels too fragile to move at this point, slip the parchment sheet onto a tray and pop the cookie dough into the fridge for 5-10 minutes to firm up before moving the cookies to the sheet trays to bake.
- Place the rounds 1/2" apart on baking sheets lined with Silpat mats or parchment paper.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking. Remove and cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.
For the peanut butter cream:
- Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium speed until smooth. Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip and set aside until ready to use.
To assemble:
- Pipe about 1 1/2 teaspoons of the peanut butter cream in the center of half of the fully cooled cookies (if you want to double-stuff them, go ahead, you’ll have plenty of filling). Top with another cookie to form a sandwich. Gently press down until the cream comes to the edges.