Cakes & Bakes: Peanut Butter Cookies

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Home-made peanut butter cookies with small vintage milk bottle and glass of milk | H is for Home

The weather’s been too hot for baking & eating full-on cake this week. All we fancy eating at the moment is salad and have been finishing an evening meal with a bowl of ice cream or a couple of biscuits instead.

Justin bought a jar of peanut butter last week not realising I’d already bought one the day before – so I decided to solve our mini-glut by baking a batch of peanut butter cookies.

The recipe was taken from The Great Big Cookie Book by Hilaire Walden.

Home-made peanut butter cookies with small vintage milk bottle and glass of milk | H is for Home

Peanut Butter Cookies

Cook Time 15 minutes
Course Snack

Ingredients
  

  • 115 g/4oz/1 cup plain flour
  • ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • pinch of salt
  • 115 g/4oz/½ cup butter
  • 125 g/4½oz/¾ cup firmly packed light brown sugar*
  • 1 egg
  • 5 ml/1 tsp vanilla extract
  • pinch of salt
  • 225 g/8oz/1 cup crunchy peanut butter

Instructions
 

  • Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and set aside
  • Cream together the butter and sugar until light & fluffy
  • In another bowl, mix the egg and vanilla extract then gradually beat into the butter mixture
  • Stir in the peanut butter and blend thoroughly
  • Stir in the dry ingredients
  • Chill for at least 30 minutes until firm
  • Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4. Grease 2 baking sheets
  • Spoon out rounded teaspoonfuls of the cookie mixture and roll into balls
  • Place the balls on the prepared baking sheets and press flat with a fork into circles about 6cm/2½ ins in diameter, making a criss-cross pattern
  • Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned
  • Transfer to a wire rack to cool
For extra crunch add 50g/2oz/½ cup chopped peanuts with the peanut butter
*The next time I make these I'd use half & half light brown sugar and Muscavado sugar to give the cookies more depth of flavour.
Keyword cookies, peanut butter, peanuts

Banana Parkin

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sliced banana ginger parkin on a vintage wooden chopping board alongside a vintage tiered cake tin

I opened the car’s glove compartment yesterday in search of a CD… but came across a couple of “past their sell by date” bananas instead. They’d been put there a few days earlier as an “on board” snack for a trip we’d made to Penrith. Rather than throw them out (or giving them to Fudge as a treat) I decided to make some banana parkin… with a ginger twist!

sliced banana ginger parkin on a vintage wooden chopping board sliced banana ginger parkin on a vintage wooden chopping board

Parkin is a cake traditionally eaten in the autumn – and especially on Bonfire Night. It’s very popular, and thought to have originated, in the north of England – probably Yorkshire or Lancashire.

The Great Big Cookie Book opened on the banana ginger parkin recipe page

The method I used was taken from The Great Big Cookie Book by Hilaire Walden.

ingredients to make banana ginger parkin sitting on a vintage wooden butchers block

Banana parkin

Ingredients
  

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas mark 3. Grease & line an 18cm x 28cm / 7” x 11” tin.
  • Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger, then stir in the oatmeal.
  • Melt the sugar, margarine and syrup in a saucepan over a low heat, then stir into the flour mixture. Beat in the egg and mashed bananas.
  • Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour until firm to the touch.
  • Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out and cut into squares. (I made mine in a loaf tin, so I cut it into slices).
Parkin improves with age and, if stored in an airtight container, keeps for a couple of months.

sliced & buttered banana ginger parkin on a plate with a mug of tea

Perfect with a mug of strong (Yorkshire… or Lancashire) tea!