Primo peanut butter cup cookies

In general I don’t consider myself to be a very good baker. I envy the one who can successfully cook up moist cupcakes or gooey-in-the-middle cookies. For me it is a rarity that my baking endeavors have a happy ending.

But I suppose failed baking doesn’t always stop me from trying once more to see if I can get it right. Practice makes perfect, right? If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again? I could go on and on.

For Labor Day I made some Lemonade Cookies that looked NOTHING like the picture in which I was aiming for. In fact, they stuck together and I had to scrap nearly an entire batch. Check out the rest of the story here.

This week a co-worker of mine had a birthday and I wanted to bring in a treat to work. Instead of stopping at Costco for the usual brownie bites (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with these), I decided to make something for her. I mean, even if they didn’t turn out perfectly, it would be the thought that counts, right?

My September issue of Real Simple arrived on Tuesday and my roommate pointed out that they had a recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. Sold.

I went to the store (walked there actually, I was being green and decided to burn off the calories before I ate them) in the morning and got the few ingredients I was missing, including the peanut butter cups. When I got home I realized that I forgot to allot time for pealing the wrappers off of a bag of mini peanut butter cups. So I sat myself on the couch and watched Martha make some yummy looking tabouli salad and bunny lamps with Jerry O’Connell while shucking (?) wrappers. So I guess I was "cooking" in front of the TV at this point, rather than eating in front of the TV.

Once the peanut butter cups were ready it was smooth sailing the rest of the way.

I am learning that when baking, if it says room-temperature butter it is of utmost importance. It doesn’t really cut it to microwave it and it really has the wrong consistency when it’s fresh out of the fridge.

When I made my Lemonade Cookies and scooped them with a spoon they came out with ragged edges, not perfect circles like the pictures. My roommate told me Martha usually uses a small ice cream scoop for more rounded cookies. While I don’t have one of those and didn’t want to drop the dough (get it?) to buy one, I improvised this time and just used my rounded-bottom tablespoon measure. It worked like a charm. I held up a perfectly rounded cookie and exclaimed, “Look how pretty!”

Cookies and milk in front of the TV – nothing better (and that's America's Top Model on in the background by the way -- Fall Season Premiere blog to come soon).

The reviews from the birthday girl and others at work were a reinforcement that maybe I am getting better at this baking thing.

From the birthday girl: “I think it's a 5-star cookie. The reviews keep coming.” The review that she was referring to: “that was MOST excellent. She's definitely on the hook to do that more often. (thanks for sharing the goods.)” An editor exclaimed: “Those are awesome cookies. I may steer clear of you for a while until they're gone or I fear I'll scarf them all.” Yet another editor demanded: "By the way, once you bring in cookies that are that good, you're not allowed to stop bringing them in. Company policy." And finally, the namesake of this blog: “Primo cookies!”

Here’s how you can make your own Primo Peanut Butter Cup Cookies (recipe from Real Simple September 2009 issue):

Hands-on time: 15 minutes | Total time: 40 minutes | makes 48 cookies (I only made 30)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 12-ounce package small peanut butter cups, coarsely chopped

>Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

>Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Fold in the peanut butter cups.

>Drop tablespoon-size mounds of dough 2 inches apart onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake until light brown around the edges, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a baking rack to cool.

Make-ahead tip: The cookies can be baked and stored at room temperature in an airtight container up to 3 days in advance.

Labor Day Lemonade Cookies

About a week before Labor Day I came across a recipe for Lemonade Cookies. Since I was going to a friend’s house to BBQ during the holiday weekend I thought the recipe would be the perfect treat on a hot day.


I set out to make the treat on Friday night so they’d be ready to go when I left for the BBQ on Sunday morning. The first batch appeared to come out well. They were light in color and texture and had just the right amount of lemon tartness. The recipe said to make sure the cookies were dry enough to put the recommended glaze on, so I decided to wait until the morning to make the addition. Before I went to bed Friday night I gathered the cookies off the baking rack and piled them on a plate and threw foil overtop.

Saturday morning I awoke early to make a second batch of cookies and add the glaze to the first batch. When I went to separate the cookies from the plate they were all stuck together. This is not what was supposed to happen! My poor baking skills/judgment strikes again. I was able to peel apart and salvage a few cookies from the first batch, but the rest just broke apart or looked too ugly to bring with me.

The second batch of cookies came out nice. I set them out, and left them, on baking sheets and let them sit while I went to work. When I got home that night I made the glaze, which didn’t quite work according to the recipe. The recipe asked for a few drops of whole milk, plus 1 Tablespoon of lemonade concentrate to go along with the 1¼ cups confectioner’s sugar, which made a goopy mess. I ended up using about 2 Tablespoons of lemonade and 3 Tablespoons of whole milk to make the glaze thin enough to spread over the cookies, but not so thin that it flowed right off the cookies.

That night instead of putting the cookies on a plate under foil I left them out on the rack to REALLY dry out.

The cookies turned out nicely. They were a little bit too much like a muffin/scone for my liking and needed a cup of coffee or milk to accompany them. I think next time I make them I would lower the baking powder from ½ teaspoon to ¼ teaspoon. But overall, the flavor was light and refreshing and would be worth trying again.

As for the cookies that crumbled apart, I didn’t see any reason why they should just end up wasted in the garbage, so I improvised. I placed about 3-4 cookies in the bottom of a small trifle bowl added a cup and a half of vanilla instant pudding and topped it all off with some sliced strawberries. This made of a few nice desserts for my roommate and I and no cookies were wasted.

Monday Night Meals

Lots of love and lots of lemon went into the making of these Angel Whisper thumprints.

This week’s Monday night meal came in a backward sort of way. I made dessert before the meal. Hey, life’s too short, cook dessert first, right?

Even though I’m not a huge baker, ‘tis the season to do so. There’s something about the holidays and cold weather that gets my baking juices flowing and every cookie recipe I see I want to make. So this year it was tough to narrow down the pot to just a few delicious recipes, but alas, the two I made Monday were Angel Whisper cookies and Peanut butter-Chocolate fudge. Mmmmmm, my mouth was watering before I even mixed the first ingredients.
The fudge was super easy to make and as someone who doesn’t like a) nuts in her baked goods and b) fudge in general, I wanted to gobble up this entire batch. Alas, I used some restraint and only had two pieces. I didn’t take any pictures of this fudge because the pictures provided on the like above are much prettier. I got 49 pieces out of one batch.

Mmmm, don't those look good enough to eat? I thought so and snuck a few in before making dinner.

Next I made Angel Whispers. The dough was only a few ingredients and while it was chilling for an hour, I was able to make the lemony filling. I really liked this recipe because it required very few ingredients and all the lemon flavoring came from natural lemon, not extract. Because I wanted to get more bang for my buck, instead of making sandwiches like the recipe asked for, I instead made bite-sized thumbprint cookies. The filling had just the right amount of tart and sweet. The recipe made 36 thumbprint cookies.

After baking the afternoon away (I should also add that I cooked the day away while there was a leak in my kitchen ceiling, not fun), it was time for a 30-minute meal to satisfy my belly a little further. In store for the evening was Cuban Surf and Turf. I came across this recipe last week while flipping through one of my Rachael Ray cookbooks and had to make it this week.

After making a batch each of fudge and cookies, this dinner was a welcome treat.

This recipe will be made again. I loved the lightness and wonderful citrus flavors. The leftover factor will be tried out tonight. I decided not to mix the pineapple and scallions into the rice so that I could re-heat the rice easier then add those ingredients each time as to keep them more fresh and crisp.

While eating dinner, I watched Heroes. My friend over at I Watch Lots of TV has a great hate for this show right now and each time I read one of his blogs about the show, I tend to nod my head in agreement on most of his points. This episode was so-so. I’m happy to see that the “Villains” chapter is over, but I’m not so sure about the next chapter “Fugitives.” I liked Nathan Petrelli and now he is going to be the one leading the hunt to contain everyone with powers. Now I don’t think I’m going to like big brother Petrelli so much. I was also sad to see Benjamin Knox (the human fear detector) killed off leaving no more former players from The Wire on the show. Darn shame. We’ll see what the new year has to offer for Heroes, but I’m not holding my breath.

Jamie Hector, formerly of The Wire, was killed off in this week's episode of Heroes.