Chocolate brownie cookie sandwiches with peanut butter frosting filling

Although I’ve been back for a few days already from my trip, I still can’t seem to get into the routine blogging thing. I’m blaming it on the excessive mental concentration of driving and strenuous exercises (which might be nothing for most people but I never exercise!). Yesterday was just a lazy day of sitting around with my iPad and laptop spread out on the bed, trying to blog but couldn’t. I even ate in bed, how about that? But it was Sunday after all and Sundays are meant to be lazy.

I have yet to make friends with Yuye’s portable oven after my last few failures of trying to bake with it but I’m thinking of trying again soon. Remember the matcha lemon fail cake? Well there was another failure which fortunately tasted heavenly. But don’t get me started on how they look.

As the oven is tiny, I had to split the batter into 3 and being a bit too ambitious I am – you can’t blame me since the lighting was getting bad and there was so much batter to get through – I ended up putting the dough too close to each other (trying to fit more on of course) and it all became a bit piece of mess I had to split up. This resulted in a few odd shaped brownie cookies but actually turned out to be the best batch as they were slightly undercooked and still beautifully gooey in the centre. The bad thing about this was they crumbled upon the slightest touch so if you’re as clumsy as me, you won’t end up with very many whole pieces.

The batter that sat outside started drying out as the batch in the oven cooked. It was frantic to watch. I should have been smarter and put a wet tea towel over the mixing bowl or something but I didn’t. So the second batch was harder to get into a round ball and the third was just impossible. They were more even but while I tried to piece back the crumbled cookies, I accidentally overcooked this batch a little. It was still beautiful but didn’t have any of that gooeyness I liked.

The third batch turned out the prettiest and cooked about right but again wasn’t as gooey as the first batch.

I know these cookies don’t look very pretty but I can assure you it was heavenly and oh so rich in chocolatey goodness. I absolutely loved them, although I couldn’t eat very many since they were that indulgent. At times like this I wish I had more of a sweet tooth!

I ended up making way too many cookies and had to give them away which I regretted the day after. I’m regretting even now because looking at these photos is making me yearn for some of that chocolatey peanuty taste in my mouth.

The recipe is from Donna Hay, which for those of you who don’t know, she’s basically the Martha Stewart from down under. She’s a fantastic cook and business woman and seems like a lovely person as well. I followed her recipe pretty much exactly except I found her recipe made too much peanut butter frosting. I’m keeping it the same though as there might be some sweet tooths out there. Plus you can always just eat the frosting by itself which I did. 😉

You can even just eat the chocolate brownie cookies by themselves which was delicious or attempt Bakers Royale’s salted caramel creme filling which I will do next time. Her cookies look so much better than how mine turned out.

Chocolate brownie cookie sandwiches with peanut butter frosting filling
Recipe from Donna Hay
Makes roughly 10-12 sandwiches

Ingredients

For the cookies
• 350g dark chocolate, chopped finely
• 40g butter
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup (35g) plain flour, sifted
• 1/4 tsp baking powder, sifted

Peanut butter frosting filling
• 1 cup (160g) icing sugar
• 1 cup (280g) smooth peanut butter
• 80g butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup (80ml) thickened cream

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180C (350F).
2. Place roughly 200g of chocolate and 40g butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Stirring until melted and smooth. Set aside to cool.
3. Whisk eggs, vanilla extract and caster sugar in a medium to large mixing bowl with an electric mixer until pale and smooth.
4. Fold through the flour, baking powder, chocolate mixture and remaining chocolate, taking care not to over mix.
5. Let sit for roughly 10 minutes so the mixture thickens.
6. Spoon roughly 1 tbsp of batter at a time onto lined baking trays at least 2 inches apart from each other. If there’s left over batter, cover with a wet tea towel so it doesn’t dry out.
7. Bake for around 8-10 minutes or until just puffed and cracked on the top of the cookies. Cool on the tray completely before moving.
8. Place icing sugar, 80g butter, peanut butter and vanilla extract in a medium to large mixing bowl. Whisk until light and fluffy.
9. Add in thickened cream and whisk again for a further few minutes until smooth and mixed through.
10. Spread half of the cookies with the frosting filling and place the other half on top like a sandwich.

Question time: Do you have a sweet tooth? Are you able to eat a lot of sweet things in one sitting?