Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies

My mom is a celiac. Which means she can't eat anything fun. Well, gluten. Which is in flour, for one. And a lot of other little things that you wouldn't expect. I've learned to keep the crumbs out of the peanut butter, and read a label really carefully, but chances are, unless you're a five-year-old and madly in love with Jello, your favourite dessert has gluten in it somewhere. Which is why I'm going to try to throw in as many gluten-free recipes as I can, or at least alternate recipes, so the celiacs of the world don't have to suffer through the agony of watching everyone else at the table eat a huge, delicious slice of pie. Mmm, pie...

Sorry, where was I? Oh right, Peanut Butter Bacon Cookies. Easiest things on the planet. Only  four ingredients, and a cooking time of 8-10 minutes. You ready?

Preheat your oven to 350. (This recipe makes 24 two-bite cookies. I think. I eat a lot of the dough.)

1 cup peanut butter

½ cup white sugar*

1 egg**
5 strips of bacon

 

*I make this recipe with pre-sweetened peanut butter. If you want to use unsweetened peanut butter, put in a whole cup of sugar instead.

**The other egg in the picture is my breakfast. Not that I can't count before my first cup of coffee. Follow what I say, not what I do.

Lay your bacon out on a sheet pan, and cook them for about 17 minutes in your oven until crispy. Crispiness is very important, as the bacon won't crisp up anymore in the cookies, and this is all about texture! And crispy bacon. I think this blog post might just turn into a detailed depiction of my love affair with bacon. And peanut butter. But mostly bacon. When your bacon is cool enough, chop it into tiny bits.

In a bowl, mix your sugar and peanut butter together. Crack in your egg, and mix that.

See? Only one egg. You must be going mad.

It'll seem terrifyingly moist at first, but keep mixing, and it'll firm up a bit. Stir in your bacon bits, then scoop the dough out onto a greased or non-stick cookie sheet, and smush them with a fork. They'll flatten out a little as they cook, so don't put them too close together. 

Cook them for 8-10 minutes, or until they turn golden around the edges. Let them sit for about five minutes before you transfer them to a cooling rack, otherwise they'll just crumble. And then you'll have to eat the pieces. What a shame.

There you go, ridiculously simple and celiac-friendly. Impress your friends!

PRO TIP (or obvious logic is obvious): If you're a vegetarian, or don't trust me when I tell you that peanut butter and bacon are made to be together, you can make some boring old peanut butter cookies just by taking the bacon out. Madness!

First Post and Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Sandwiches

I'm trying this crazy blog thing again, this time with 23% less baking (or rather, more other food, so less baking in comparison.) Of course, I think I made three posts last time, and those numbers don't mix well. I'll pretend that I'm going to update every Sunday, but in reality you'll probably get three random posts over the next ten days, then I won't blog again until I come up with another clever blog name. You'll forgive me though, because I'm going to tell you how to make mint/chocolate ice cream sandwiches. And maybe some gluten-free peanut butter cookies. My kitten could make those. And she's currently trying to watch TV upside-down. (Gratuitous kitten pictures give you +3 to Readers, right?)

Mint Ice Cream:

Handful of Fresh Mint Leaves

2c Cream

2c 2% Milk

1c White Sugar

7 Egg Yolks

½ Vanilla bean or 1 tsp Vanilla

(This isn't churned ice cream, but it has the same ingredients, so we'll still call it ice cream, shall we?)

Pour your milk and cream into a heavy-bottomed pot, give your mint leaves a couple chops (you're just crushing them for flavour,) and scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod, and throw the vanilla (pod too) and the mint in with the milk and cream. Bring the mixture up to a boil (if you're doing it on high heat, keep an eye on it,) and as soon as it comes up to a boil, take it off the heat, cover it with plastic wrap, and let it sit for 30 minutes.

While you're waiting, you can cream together your sugar and egg yolks, and get started on your chocolate cookies.

After 30 minutes, temper the cream mixture into the eggs/sugar, then pour it all back into the pot. Cook the mixture until it thickens. You can use the back of a spoon to test it (it should cover it,) or if you have a thermometer, it won't thicken past 180 degrees F. Don't let it boil though, or it will curdle, and you'll have to start all over.

Next, strain the mint and vanilla out of your ice cream, and let your mixture cool. (Since this is going to be in the middle of a sandwich, I split the batch in two, and poured each half into an 8x8 pan with parchment paper on the bottom (make sure it comes up the sides too, otherwise it'll just leak underneath.) Once it has cooled, pop it in the freezer. If you're feeling fancy, you can mix some chocolate chips in first.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies:

Preheat oven to 325

1/2 C White Sugar

½ C Butter

1-1¼ C Flour

1 Egg

1/3 C Cocoa Powder

Pinch of salt

Cream your butter and sugar together (these were a last minute decision for me, so I softened the butter in the microwave first,) mix in the egg, then add your cocoa, flour and salt. It should be just dry enough to roll out on a floured surface, so start by adding 1 C of flour, and add more as necessary. Roll it out, but remember that these aren't going to rise, so what you see is what you get.

Once they're rolled out, pick a cookie cutter. A deep one is better, since you'll be using the same one for the ice cream. I was boring and round. Lay your cookies on a greased or non-stick pan. If you want to be fancy, you can sprinkle some sugar on half of your cookies to make the tops tops, but ice cream sandwiches are awesome no matter how you slice 'em, so it's up to you. Toss them in your preheated oven for 7-9 minutes.

Your ice cream probably isn't frozen yet, so go out and watch a movie. Or be like me, and eat half the cookies. When your ice cream finally freezes (waiting is agony!!), take your same cookie cutter, run it under warm water, and cut some ice cream circles. Hopefully you can figure out what to do from here, but I'll give you a picture just in case:

And there you have it. Tasty ice cream sandwiches.