Beautiful Food

I admit, I’ve never heard of cookie butter until last year while touring some of my favorite bloggers’ web pages.  It’s literally a bunch of cookies blended with oil, and sold in a jar for you to buy and stuff your face with.  Where has this been all my life?  Oh yeah, not in Nebraska that’s where.  No wonder.  Also known as Speculoos, speculass, Bischoff spread etc., cookie butter originally began from the classic and very old Dutch recipe that featured Indian spices (remember windmill cookies!?).  Or at least, that’s what the all-wise and all-knowing internet tells me…

Since its popularity has risen in the U.S of A, many other forms of cookie butter have emerged, including recipes to make your own for all of you Do-It-Yourselfers out there.  Trader Joe’s has helped to make this concoction more popular with its own version as well, among many other new and emerging brands.  The brand I chose, ZOET, is known for their chocolate bars, so imagine my surprise when I found this at my local Hy Vee:

If you’re more curious about cookie butter- check out this video from Buzzfeed showing people trying it for the first time.  And to quote the woman at the end, “You’d butter believe it”.   Yes, it’s that good.  And what an awesome food to experiment with in the kitchen, too!

I for one, cheated and used pre-packaged cookie butter instead of making it from scratch,  but there is no kitchen disgrace going on here, as the cookies I made that used this creamy sin in a jar, were hands down the best.  The BEST I tell you!  Of course, I say that about all of my recipes 😉

I found this original recipe on one of those (dare you click) 50 GREATEST RECIPES USING INSERT YOUR FAVORITE INGREDIENT HERE banners on Pinterest.  The thing I actually like about those posts is they usually introduce me to about 50 new blogs I haven’t found and followed yet.  It led me to this recipe here, which I then altered to my own liking, tested, found out it worked, and posted it here for all of you.

Now get to baking!

Time Warning: Will take 3+ hours due to the need to chill the dough.

Nut Warning:  Contains peanut butter and pecans.

Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup creamy Cookie Butter
• 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 3/4 cup light or dark brown sugar, packed
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoons nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup crushed pecans
• pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon raw sugar to sprinkle on top

Directions: 

Begin by creaming the butters and sugar in a large mixing bowl using either a stand mixer or an electric mixer by hand.  (peanut and cookie butter, egg, brown sugar, and vanilla).  Mix for about 4 minutes until fluffy.  Do not over mix (if it starts to look super oily you’ve gone a little far…don’t fret).

Add the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, soda and spices) and mix on low until just incorporated.  Again, don’t mix any longer than that.  Pour in the pecans and mix by hand with a rubber scraper, or a fork!  To be honest, the fork worked better.

If you feel the dough is too sticky to take the shape of a ball, add a few more tablespoons of flour and mix it in.

Next, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form round balls about 1 1/2 inch in diameter (These are decent, fat cookies).  Place the dough balls in a bowl and between each layer place some parchment paper.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap.  Chill the dough balls in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.  I did mine overnight, which helped them maintain their shape and not spread too much while baking.

I can’t wait til baking, I want to eat one now!

After chilling, remove from fridge and place the dough balls on a parchmented baking sheet.  Place them about 1 1/2 inches or more apart.  I was able to get 8 on each sheet.

Preheat oven to 350º F.  

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes.  Keep an eye on them.  They should spread a little, but still look like nice fat, soft pillows with a golden brown hue.

*Yields about 16 cookies.

I baked mine longer than the original recipe called for, one because I used different ingredients, and two, I wanted a slightly different effect.  I still ended up with softness on the inside, and a nice crunch on the outside.

 Yum!

So, I hope you like these my baking friends!  These cookies pair nicely with a fresh cup of joe, almond milk, (or regular milk for that matter), and are best shared with your neighbors so they don’t go straight to your hips.

Oh, and here’s a quick shameless plug for all of my favorite bloggers’ books and then some:  sallysbakingaddiction.com, joythebaker.com, trinehahnemann.com. 

I bought a few of these second hand from resellers and a few brand new!

Enjoy!

-K