Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

This recipe came from Chef Britta's dessert blog, Sunday Sweets. As soon as she posted it, I knew I had to try it. I mean, how can you beat peanut butter cookies with chocolate ganache in the middle?

Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients:
1 c. flour
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped (I just used semisweet chocolate chips)
2 T. heavy cream (I used whole milk, because that's all I had)
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 c. creamy peanut butter
1/3 c. packed brown sugar

Note: Do you notice anything unusual about these ingredients? I didn't either until I started making them. There are no eggs in the recipe! Because of this, the cookies are not soft and chewy. They're kind of crumbly and have the texture of shortbread. That really took me by surprise.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare chocolate ganache filling by melting the chocolate in a heat-proof (pyrex glass is perfect) bowl on top of a pot of simmering water (the double-boiler method). Stir frequently until chocolate is smooth. Add cream and continue to stir until smooth. Set aside chocolate to cool and thicken for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat together butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar until light and fluffy. (This is when I noticed the recipe didn't call for eggs. ;) ) Add salt, baking soda, and flour, and mix until just blended (do not overmix). Roll dough into 1" balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. I fit all of them on one big cookie sheet (it made 24 balls). They can be close together because they don't expand very much. Flatten the balls of dough into a disc shape with the bottom of a dampened glass. Bake until golden around the edges, about 12 to 13 minutes. Now here's where my directions stray from Chef Britta's (well, aside from mixing the dry ingredients in a separate bowl...that's a given for me ;) ). She said to remove cookies immediately and transfer them to a wire rack. I attempted this, and the results were disastrous (see below). The cookies fell apart as I tried to move them. Instead I let them cool for at least ten minutes before moving them to a wire rack. They held together much better after having cooled for a little bit.

Allow cookies to cool. Stir chocolate topping and spread generously on the bottom of half of the cookies. Top with the other half of the cookies. Allow to set for about 15 minutes before serving. Store leftovers in the fridge.

So, mine turned out pretty good, even though they don't look quite as beautiful as Chef Britta's:


Although, we did have two complete casualties, and one more that underwent reconstructive surgery:


All in all, the cookies were delicious! But be sure to eat them with a tall glass of milk. You also can really only eat one or two at a time. They are on the intense side, even for me. ;)

Here's a link to Chef Britta's recipe (and I recommend looking at it because she has some good pictures of the steps along the way): Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies.