Snickers-stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Snickers-Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies - made November 6, 2012, recipe adapted from Lovin' From the Oven

I'm finally catching up on all the stuff I've cooked and baked over the past several weeks and am a little more "real time".  Well, this is from a week and a half ago so maybe not but I'm getting there.  We're smack in the middle of my holiday prep season.  I have one more weekend before Thanksgiving to get all my decorating done.  I'm probably about 75% of the way there then I can focus almost exclusively on baking.  Every night this week after work, I've been checking off my to-do list one by one, either decorating or wrapping gifts or trying out just one more new recipe or making cookie dough of a tried and true recipe to put in the freezer for later.  And believe it or not, I'm really enjoying myself.  This is my season.

I'm trying to focus on little bite-sized desserts as I've got 2 dessert buffets to put together, one for Thanksgiving and one for a dessert party that I'm hosting at the end of the month.  And for both, I need mini desserts so people can sample a little of everything without OD'ing (too much) on sugar.  I found this recipe for peanut butter cookies from Lovin' From the Oven and decided to give it a little extra twist by wrapping the peanut butter cookie dough around half of a bite-sized Snickers bar (yes, I've still got leftover Halloween candy) and baking them in mini muffin tins.  Hence the Snickers-stuffed peanut butter cookie cup was born.

Taste-wise, hello, these were awesome.  It's ironic that about the only time I actually eat Halloween candy is when I bake it in something.  I can pass up a plain ol' Snickers without blinking but wrap a cookie around it?  I'm so there.  You can probably use almost any peanut butter cookie recipe to make these but I recommend one that uses all butter (no shortening) because you want a soft cookie rather than a crisp one to complement the Snickers stuffing.  I did modify the original recipe because I didn't have medium-sized eggs and only had extra-large eggs so I used only 1 extra-large egg instead of 2 medium-sized eggs.  The only issue with making these as cookie cups is they are a bit fragile so getting them out of the muffin tins was a little problematic - if you're careful, they won't necessarily break apart but they might get a little misshapen coming out of the tins.  You can also forego baking them in the mini muffin tins and instead bake "straight" as cookies.  I tried that and that also worked pretty well.  Just make sure the peanut butter cookie dough covers the Snickers completely.  Not sure if I'll serve these at Thanksgiving or my dessert party given their fragility but I certainly enjoyed the experiment.

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 extra-large egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
extra sugar for rolling
Snickers chunks (as many as you have dough for)

1. Beat together the butter, peanut butter, and vanilla extract. Mix in both sugars, salt, and baking powder.
2. Beat in the egg. Gradually mix in the flour, half at a time.  Take a tablespoon of dough and wrap around a Snickers piece.  Freeze or refrigerate dough balls until firm.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll the balls in the sugar. Place evenly apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 12-13 minutes. Let cookies cool on the cookie sheet after taking them out for about 8 minutes before removing them with a spatula. Cool completely before storing.