Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich Cookies

It's improvisation time for bloggers everywhere that take in the Improv challenge, with this month's ingredients being peanut butter and jelly (i.e., jam). There's probably lots of random things that you can do with peanut butter and jam, but I had been intending to make peanut butter cookies for quite awhile now, so I figured that there was definitely room there for some jam improvisation. So I decided to make thin, soft peanut butter cookies and sandwich them together with raspberry jam. Only not just with jam, that's not enough. I thought of making a buttercream frosting with jam in it, but then decided that maybe my sandwich cookies could have two layers? Thick and creamy vanilla buttercream and bright red raspberry jam, between two sweet and salty peanut butter cookies. They were very yummy. But they are so rich it's sickening. I recommend sharing them, because more than one of these at a time will probably leave you with a tummy ache.

Peanut Butter Cookies

125 grams butter
150 grams brown sugar
125 grams crunchy peanut butter
1 egg
150 grams flour (about 3/4 of a cup)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts

Filling for sandwich cookies:
Buttercream Frosting
Raspberry Jam

To begin with, turn the oven on to 180 degrees and line a couple of cookie trays with baking paper. Then place a large bowl on some kitchen scales and add the butter, sugar and peanut butter. Cream the butters and sugar together with an electric mixer, then add the egg and beat some more.

Place the bowl back on the scales and add the flour and baking powder. Mix again, with either an electric mixer or just using a large spoon. Finally, add the peanuts and fold them through. The mixture will be very soft.

Roll small balls of dough and press onto the cookie trays. Bake each tray for 10 minutes, then remove the trays and let the cookies cool before you transfer them to a wire rack.

Now, if you just want peanut butter cookies then these are really good as they are. But if you are going for something ridiculously decadent, mix up a small batch of buttercream frosting. Organise the cookies into pairs of similar size and shape. Spread frosting onto one cookie, jam onto the other and carefully sandwich the two together.