We love to bake at our house: cheese cakes, banana chocolate chip bread, pecan pie, pumpkin pie (made with Hubbard squash), apple pie, Kentucky Derby pie, sour dough bread plain or with brown sugar and cinnamon or with cheese or with chocolate chips, blueberry cobbler, lemon blueberry pound cake, and cookies, cookies, cookies. For the next few weeks, I’ll share some of our special cookie recipes.
One of our Christmas traditions, in fact, is baking several different kinds of cookies—at least twelve—and sharing cookie trays with our neighbors. Magic Middles is one of our favorite cookie. They look like chocolate cookies until you bite into them. The middle is filled with peanut butter. Here’s the recipe:
Magic Middles
Cookie dough– Filling–
1 1/2 C plain flour 3/4 C peanut butter
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa 3/4 C powdered sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C butter/margarine
1 t vanilla
1/4 C peanut butter
1 egg
In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, and baking soda; blend well. In a large bowl beat sugar, brown, sugar, margarine, and 1/4 peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Stir in flour mixture until blended; set aside. In a small bowl, combine filling ingredients; blend well. Roll into 30 1-inch balls for 30 cookies.
For each cookie, shape with floured hands about 1 tablespoonful of dough around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Bake in a 375-degree oven 7 to 9 minutes or until set and slightly cracked. Cool on wire racks.
The above recipe is the original one, but I usually make smaller balls to make more cookies. Sometimes I run out of the peanut butter filling and have chocolate dough left over, so I make some plain chocolate cookies. They’re good, too. I’ve never doubled the recipe, but we always have to make a second batch so that we have some to eat and some to share.
Try this recipe, pour a glass of milk, and enjoy!
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