Peanut butter and chocolate chip biscuit on Lou Rota’s ‘Nature Table ‘ plate (for Anthropologie)
I had great plans this week for exploring biscuit making using almond butter after Waitrose had been successful in bringing both almond butter and cashew nut butter to my attention. I got even more excited after reading Dan Lepard’s article on nut butters in the online Guardian. Unfortunately the jar of almond butter we picked up was all of 170 g when the recipe called for 200g or more. As the vicar had to go out on call, we thrust a small shopping list in his hand and asked him to divert his journey via Waitrose (probably a couple of miles out of his way in each direction…) The vicar returned … but with a jar of peanut butter, albeit not the one with the familiar bright blue or bright red lid.. A short altercation followed with both of us on insecure ground – perhaps I had written the wrong thing down or perhaps the vicar had misread it, either being just as likely. The shopping list retrieved from an overloaded pocket (a small point of ongoing contention) saw the vicar crestfallen and apologetic (unnecessary but touching) and daughter No 3 got on with making the biscuits with crunchy organic peanut butter (‘absolutely no added sugar’ according to the label). At this point we discovered we only had soft dark sugar but as it really wasn’t a good idea to send the vicar off again, we made do…
The church biscuit: 58. Peanut butter and chocolate chip biscuits
Ingredients
50 g soft light brown sugar (we only had soft dark)
50 g golden caster sugar
1 egg
1 teasp vanilla extract
1 teasp honey
200 g crunchy peanut butter
50 g wholemeal flour
50 g Self Raising flour
50g dark chocolate chips
Maeks about 30 biscuits
Preheat the oven to 170º C/ 150 º C for a fan oven/ Gas Mark 3
Prepare a couple of baking sheets lined with baking parchment (we make small biscuits so use both trays twice)
Cream the butter and the sugars, then add the egg, vanilla extract, honey and the peanut butter.
Sift in the flours and then add in the chocolate chips.
Put rounded teaspoon full dollops on to the baking trays.
Cook for 10-15 minutes.
Peanut butter and chocolate chip biscuits
Note: We put our fan oven on 170º which was too hot (hence I’ve quoted 150º for a fan oven above) as you can see from the photographs. The second batch was rather more overcooked (daughter No 3 and I got chatting) so I’ve not shown them. (I kept them hidden in their tin and produced them with some reluctance upon request – less discerning eaters seemed quite happy with them.)
Possibly 50 g was insufficient for the chocolate chips. We shall try these again at the right temperature and with more chocolate. They were good – but not great – biscuits.
Some recipes suggest adding salt but even this organic, hand knitted nut butter, lovingly made of peanuts raised with consideration and tolerance in a non shouty environment had no need for extra salt, so I think we can safely omit it altogether, especially if you only have to hand the stuff with the bright red or bright blue lid (and no vicar to send out on a foraging mission). But now I’m just getting silly. We shall experiment with the more sophisticated nut butters another time.
