Super Easy Smear Cookies!

So, I have to admit. Even though I looove healthy food. Deep down, I'm a junk food junkie. On the plus side, I've been making a lot more of my junk food at home, and made from scratch. Translation: Less preservatives, and I can alter the contents to be healthier (If I wanted to haha). Now, no worries about this recipe being altered in any way. This is a straight up Pioneer Woman recipe, and those are very rarely altered by moi. :)

*For those of you who are not familiar with the Pioneer woman the link to her website is here. She is one of my idols, and one hell-of-a woman! :D

Today were making "spreads". For a link to the original recipe Clickie here .


First: Pre-heat your oven, to about 350Degrees , and prepare a baking sheet as normal.


Next: Gather your ingreedents (full recipe can be found at the end of this post...)
Begin mixing
First... Blend your butter and sugar, then add your egg...
blend it carefully now, no one likes a tough cookie haha!

Add the Flour...
Salt and Vanilla...
Mix until blended.
Spread the cookie batter on your baking sheet, spatulas help, but a regular butter knife would work too...
Bake for 15-20 Min. (Because I'm using a gas oven, I stick with a time that is about half way between.)
Once the "cookie" is golden brown, pull from the oven and cover with chocolate chips... this is where the ONLY variation comes in... Because I was using dark chocolate, I decided to sweeten it up a bit by tossing in some white chocolate chips.
Pop that bad boy back in the oven for about a min or 2 and watch as the melty doom ensues...
Once melted, smear the chocolate chips to coat the cookie evenly... I added extra white chips at this point for extra effect.

*Drool*
Once the cookies have cooled, cut into bars with a knife or a pizza cutter and enjoy :D
Smear cookies:

1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Margarine (No subbing butter now use the good stuff its much better, trust me...)
1 Egg
2 Cups Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
6-8 oz. Dark/ Milk Chocolate chips
3 oz. White chocolate chips.

Cookie Cravings

Scotty and I have just finished moving into our new house in Englewood. After 3 long days of packing, stuffing, and shipping all of our belonings we are now taking a day of rest. I was trying to think of a snack that would quickly pick up our spirits, and fill our tummies at the same time. As usual, I was using 2 sites at once to try and find something to strike my culinary fancy, Foodgawker.com and "stumble".

Through my clicks I came upon a wonderful little cooking blog run by a lovely young lady named Kim. www.lovintheoven.com, is the name of the site and it is full of tasty goodies and easy to make foods of all sorts (including 52 different cookie recipies *drool*) I decided to try my luck at her "Creamy Peanut Butter Cookies", the cookies turned out fantastic, and I decided I had to share them with you. Be forwarned, this post is a little photo heavy, so it make take a while to load.


"Kim's Creamy Peanut Butter Cookies":

Cast:
1 1/2 Cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
"pinch" of salt
3/4 cup Creamy peanut butter
1 1/1 tsp. Vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 Med. eggs
about 1/4 cup plain sugar for rolling


Step 1:
Preheat the oven to 350 dregees farenheit. (I have been so excited to try my new gas range, this is probably the 4th thing I've baked since we moved in LOL) Also, line your cookie sheats with foil and spray with cooking oil.


Step 2:
Beat together the butter, peanut butter, and vanilla extract...


Mix in both sugars, salt, and baking powder.




Wheeee!!!!!

Step 3:
Start adding the Flour 1/2 cup at a time. Eventually it will become a semi soft and very workable dough. (almost like peanut butter play dough)

Step 4:
Add your eggs, one at a time.


When it's all done it should look something like this...

You should be able to pick it up play with it a bit, but be careful, too much handling and your cookie rolling will be difficult. Step 5 Is rolling into balls...
About 1 1/2 inches each should make perfect sized cookies.
(thanks to Scotty for helping me take some of these pics)

Roll them in Sugar (this helps keep them from sticking to the pan, and also gives them an awesome crunch)
Then Put the balls in rows on the lined baking sheet...


Using a Fork, Make criss-cross marks on the tops.
Bake for 13-15 min, untill they lighten a bit and expand slightly.
Ta da!!!! Crunchy on the outside but soft and oh so cakie on the inside. :) Thanks again to Kim for such a wonderful recipie, Scotty has a new favorite and I can't wait for Seth and Papi to give them a try! :D