Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters

From the name of these biscuits you can probably tell where they come from. Yep, they are from the USA - Dorie Greenspan in fact. We Aussie’s tend not to use the word oatmeal, but I figured I had to be true to the original recipe. Dorie Greenspan has one mighty following in the blog-o-sphere. Each Tuesday many food bloggers all post the same recipe from her book “Baking, From My Home to Yours” as part of the group “Tuesdays with Dorie”. I don’t know if I have ever found a book I love so much that I would work my way through it one recipe at a time. Although Karen Martini’s first cookbook “Where the Heart is” would come very very close!

I read about these biscuits on A Whisk and a Spoon and I thought they looked pretty damn good. However I am not the biggest peanut butter fan, but I have this fascination at the moment with the idea of mixing salt and sugar, so the idea of a slightly salty peanut butter, mixed with sugar and chocolate got me a bit excited. The biscuits turned out very good – I was pleasantly surprised. The nutmeg was an inspired addition and gave them an extra kick that made these biscuits that extra bit special. I definitely think this recipe is a keeper. Perhaps next time though, I will add some salted chopped peanuts – just to enhance the salty/sweet playoff.

My sister made these biscuits and got around 45, but I ended up with something more around the 80 mark! Next time I will definitely be halving the recipe, but my husbands work colleagues definitely enjoyed the overflow of biscuits.

Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters
From “Baking, From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan
Makes about 80 cookies (in my hands anyway!!)

3 cups rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
225g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup chunky peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 180ºC (or 160ºC for fan forced). Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Mix together the oats, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt.

Beat together the softened butter, peanut butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition, then beat in the vanilla.

Stir in the rolled oat mix and the chocolate chips. The recipe suggests refrigerating the mixture for 2 hours or overnight to give a more even shaped biscuit – but I didn’t do this and I think mine turned out ok!

Drop rounded tablespoonfuls of the mixture 2 inches apart onto the baking trays.

Bake for 13 minutes or until golden and just firm around the edges. The biscuits will firm up as they cool. Cooking for 13 mins gave slightly crunchy biscuits, so if you like your biscuits more soft reduce the cooking time a little.

Enjoy!