The Million-Dollar Cookie

I had to try them! I simply had to know what kind of a cookie would win one million dollars. A cookie that good, regardless of how many pre-made products it uses should be quite good.

I only made one change to the recipe as written, and that was with the peanuts. I didn’t have dry-roasted peanuts on hand, and didn’t want to buy a whole jar for just 1/4 cup of nuts, so I used honey-roasted peanuts, which we always have on hand. I also have to say that I found the cookie dough annoying to work with. It kept sticking to everything. The directions say to slice the dough, and most of the dough came away with the knife, so I divided the dough with my hands, just pulling off knobs of dough and rolling them up as needed. It worked okay, I suspect that my dough wasn’t cold enough- the recipe does say well-chilled.  Perhaps freezing it for 15 minutes or so would be helpful.

And the result? Seriously, these are some ramped up peanut butter cookies! I agree with all the assessments I’ve read so far that say these are peanut butter cookies taken to a whole new level. One batch makes 24 cookies, and I made these last night after dinner. The kids each had two- and these are good sized cookies! I can’t say how many I ate…or how many Andy ate. We just kept going back to the pile of cookies, thinking we should try just one more. These really are an excellent cookie- much better than I’d anticipated, that’s for certain. Will I make them again? Most definitely. They really came together easy and are just so delicious. The next time I make them though, I am going to try using my homemade peanut butter dough to see how they compare.

Which leads me to a thought regarding the Pillsbury Bake-Off. It seems to me, that this is just the type recipe they are looking for. I thought about this woman who won, who I understand is perfectly charming, and I wondered how she came up with this cookie. Then I wondered if perhaps she had been making this for years herself, and just decided to adapt it to use the convenience products and tweaked it accordingly. That may be the key to doing well in the bake-off. Taking an original homemade recipe for something you truly love, and adapting it to use the sponsors products. It seems to me, that would be the ideal way to go instead of looking at the products and coming up with an idea.

And now, I think I need to go have a cookie for breakfast. Tomorrow, I’ll be giving a garden update, so stay tuned for that!

Double Delight Peanut Butter Cookies

Serving Size : 24

1/4 cup Fisher® Dry Roasted Peanuts — finely chopped
1/4 cup Domino® or C&H® Granulated Sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup JIF® Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Domino® or C&H® Confectioners Powdered Sugar
1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® Create ‘n Bake® refrigerated peanut butter cookies — well chilled

Heat oven to 375°F. In small bowl, mix chopped peanuts, granulated sugar and cinnamon; set aside.

In another small bowl, stir peanut butter and powdered sugar until completely blended. Shape mixture into 24 (1-inch) balls.

Cut roll of cookie dough into 12 slices. Cut each slice in half crosswise to make 24 pieces; flatten slightly. Shape 1 cookie dough piece around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Repeat with remaining dough and balls.

Roll each covered ball in peanut mixture; gently pat mixture completely onto balls. On ungreased large cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart. Spray bottom of drinking glass with CRISCO® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray; press into remaining peanut mixture. Flatten each ball to 1/2-inch thickness with bottom of glass. Sprinkle any remaining peanut mixture evenly on tops of cookies; gently press into dough.

Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered.