Monday, January 17, 2005

Mondays with Maida - Chocolate Peanut Cookies


Page 34 in the old book / page 48 in the new book

At long last, the eleventh and final chocolate drop cookie! They are Chocolate Peanut Cookies, and although they weren’t my favorite of the bunch, they were very good and I think they might have been the most popular among my coworkers. The chocolate icing is an obvious selling point and apparently the peanuts gained them high marks as well. They are small thick cookies that are firm to the bite and are very chocolaty.

The dough is the ultimate in simplicity, made of only chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and salted peanuts. It mixed up quickly and was easy to handle, although the peanuts did make forming evenly sized and shaped cookies a little trickier. The glaze was supposed to be thin enough to spread on its own into a even layer over the whole cookie. It became obvious after the first couple of cookies that I didn’t have it thin enough to behave as it should, but I didn’t stop to futz with it. It was quite late, and I didn’t mind it going on a little thicker. The glaze continues to thicken as it stands, so I did have to stop to thin it with a little hot water a couple of times just to keep it a workable consistency. Using hot water to thin the glaze was suggested in the recipe and worked well – the only problem was its effects didn’t seem to last very long!



It was late when I finished icing these, so I left them sitting on the rack overnight to set the glaze. This wasn’t much longer than the suggested “several hours”, so I hoped it wouldn’t be too long. They didn’t seem to suffer for it, and as I mentioned above they were well received at work. I thought they were very good (I like an iced chocolate cookie as much as anyone else!), but they didn’t stand out much from some of the other cookies I’ve made over the past few weeks. If you’re a peanut lover though, this may be your cookie!

Next week – Whole-Wheat and Honey Hermits (with spices, currants, raisins, dates, and walnuts…yum, I can’t wait!!)

Nutrition Facts

4 comments:

Reid said...

Hi Cathy,

The cookies look so good. I like peanuts and chocolate...and the icing probably made these so much better. =)

Cerebrum said...

I don't think I've avtually ever done a glazed cookie - well, at least not with such a luscious glaze! Now I have to try it! Love the dish/serving platter on the first picture!

Blog ho said...

If I saw you on the street with those cookies I would mug you and steal them and then send you a thank you card after I'd eaten all of them.

Cathy said...

Hi Reid - thanks! Yes, I think the icing does make these. I just made next week's cookies and am planning to bring them to the office this morning. I think everyone is going to tell me they'd rather have chocolate!

Hi Zarah - you know, I used to stay away from frosted cookies, thinking they were more difficult and wouldn't store well. Now that I've made several for this project, I don't think I would worry on either count - making and applying the icing is usually quite easy and sort of fun. Also, with waxed paper between the layers, they do quite well (though I'm not sure they'd ship well).

Emily - thanks! Yeah, I kind of like the ripples and globbiness of it as it is!

Blog Ho - thanks...I think