Cookie of the Month - Peanut Butter

Starting this month, I'm going to make at least one cookie to feature each month. Some of them I may have made previously (but can't resist making again) or I will try a different variation or some completely new cookie recipe that I've never attempted previously. This past weekend I made peanut butter cookies because we had a craving for something sweet at my mum's and happened to have all the ingredients to make these, including just enough peanut butter. Peanut butter cookies with the classic criss-cross pattern with the fork is something I always remember my mum making growing up. The cookies my mum would typically make from time to time were chocolate chip, peanut butter, no-bake and oatmeal with raisins, chocolate chips and coconut. So, while we visited after dinner, I made the peanut butter cookie dough, rolled balls of dough in sugar and flattened them with the criss-cross pattern to bake. The pattern didn't hold well with this recipe and that may be due to the fact that we used margarine instead of butter as it was all we had on hand. However, they were the perfect consistency and sure satisfied our sweet tooth with a cold glass of milk.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

While all desserts are commonly referred to as "puddings" in England, this is actually not a pudding as we know it, but more of a cake. It is indeed sticky though, especially with the molasses infused toffee sauce. And, what English dessert (I mean pudding) would be complete without the addition of some type of sauce, be it custard, toffee, caramel or cream!? I've ordered this dessert at a restaurant in England and was interested to try making it myself. On a recent visit to my mum, I made this for her and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

The other sticky ingredient in this dessert are the dates. The first step was to take the pitted dates and boil them with some water and baking soda to soften them. They were added in with the other ingredients as the basis for the cake batter.

The recipe I used, indicated baking one large cake in a mold, but I have this pan with the cute individual bundt cakes and decided to try that. It worked quite well, but I probably could have put just a little less batter in each one.

They baked perfectly though and came out of the pan just right (thanks to Pam Baking spray). I made the toffee sauce with dark brown sugar, molasses and heavy cream. It turned out very good, but I would probably try corn syrup or something else instead of molasses next time as with the high molasses content of the dark brown sugar it had a stronger flavour. I drizzled (and eventually poured) the sauce on top of the pretty little cakes to let them soak in the creamy sauce - sticky goodness!