Fudge and PB cookie sandwiches

This dessert was really a combination of two previous desserts. We love our recipe for chocolate fudge cookies, and we also really like mixing peanut butter with chocolate. So this recipe practically wrote itself!

The main question was how to do the peanut butter filling. Last time, we mixed peanut butter with parve creamer and whipped it up into a peanut butter foam. I was afraid that would not hold up for this application, and so I instead went to work making a peanut butter pudding with some fish gelatin I bought a while ago.

The fish gelatin instructions only tell you to dissolve a whole packet in 1/2 cup of milk or water for 20 minutes, then to heat the whole thing to 50-60 degrees C. I added two packets to 1 cup of soymilk with peanut butter mixed in and waited. 20 minutes later, it was a hard lumpy mess. I heated it and added more soy milk, which resulted in a nice smooth liquid.

Getting past this smooth liquid was the hard part. As a liquid, it was too runny. After chilling in the freezer, though, it got too hard and rubbery. Depending on the texture, the taste varied from smooth and creamy to chewy-pudding. But it always tasted like peanut butter, which was the main point.

It was hard to work with my peanut-pudding, but the filling was ok in the end. I think next time I'd use the peanut butter whipped cream from last time.

Oh, another weird thing was that the peanut filling seemed to cause the cookies to lose their stiffness and instead become soft mushballs. Oh well, it's fudge anyway, right?

Chocolate Fudge Cookies

An attempt to find the perfect chocolate fudge cookie...

If I was in the U.S. I would probably have just bought a brownie mix and made cookies with it instead. Since I am mix-less and on my own here, I'll have to make do with what I have. I used this recipe. As usual I made some modifications. Instead of yogurt I used a chocolate pudding mix (made with soy milk). I also had to find a brown sugar substitute since I was running low. My substitute worked like this - for every 1 cup of brown sugar the recipe calls for, I substituted 1 cup white sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons honey. You could probably just substitute 1:1 with white sugar alone. What difference does it make? I did consult with a food scientist but the answer didn't sink in. A quick internet search revealed exactly what I was looking for: "Are Brown and White Sugar Interchangeable when Baking?"

A little trick to get the "cracked" look with the cookies - place the dough onto the cookie sheet as balls (somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon each) and bake for 5-7 minutes. A few minutes before they're done - take them out and using a spoon, press each one down a bit. You'll notice the cracking right away. If it doesn't work exactly, leave them in for a bit longer and then press down.

All in all the cookies were delicious - very chocolatey (thank you chocolate pudding). As always there's room to grow.... With this recipe I would say my issue is the amount of sugar. Next time I'll either repeat the recipe and cut down on the sugar or try a different one.