Malawi Peanut Balls (Mtedza)

I’ve never really liked peanut butter. Peanut butter is just so rich and sticky, and only really tastes good when paired with lots and lots of jelly and bread. However, these cookies are crumbly and buttery and just taste so good. They remind me of peanut shortbread.

I originally intended for this post to go with “Alphabet Around the World,” but these were too good to wait until the letter “M”. They’re cute bite-sized treats – perfect for a tea party or the like.

Malawai Peanut Balls

• ½ cup butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ¾ cup roasted peanuts
• 1 tsp vanilla
• pinch salt
• 1 cup flour
• Powdered Sugar

1. Chop the roasted peanuts into fine pieces. (I think a food processor might work for this, however be careful not to over-process, or you will end up with peanut butter.)
2. Cream together the butter and sugar.
3. Stir in the vanilla, salt, and crushed peanuts.
4. Stir in the flour.
5. Divide into 2 tablespoon sized portions (easiest with a small ice cream scooper) and roll into balls.
6. Bake at 350, for about 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.
7. While they are hot, roll in powdered sugar.
8. Place on a rack and allow to cool completely.
9. If desired, roll in powdered sugar again.

Advertisement

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve made countless versions of chocolate chip cookies: some calling for bread flour, others for egg yolks, some even for vanilla beans and brown butter and the like, but I’ve found, when it comes down to it, simplicity is best.

These cookies are good. They’re not too thin, not too thick, not too crispy, not too soft. They’re not the most extravagant cookies – they’re far from it – but they’re buttery and chocolatey, and sometimes simplicity is best.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

recipe adapted from here.

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 ¾ cups (12 oz) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 bag (2 cups) semi sweet chocolate chips

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
2. In another bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract.
4. Fold in the dry ingredients until there are no streaks of flour. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Refrigerate for at least an hour (or just skip this step – most of the time i do)
6. Divide the dough into 2 tablespoons sized portions, and then bake at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown. Bake for shorter or more time depending on personal preferences. 🙂

Snickerdoodle Cookies

This week I was looking up recipes to make as a post-finals celebration and I stumbled upon this recipe for funfetti cookies. Even though chocolate cake is my ultimate favorite (you can beat chocolate, really), I’ve always loved funfetti cakes. Funfetti specked foods are just so pretty, and of course, delicious. But mostly pretty.

Anyways I decided to make the cookies, and figured that I could make an extra large batch and give some to my teachers as a ‘thanks for putting up with me the whole year’ sort of deal. So I did. Wednesday. At midnight. (time management isn’t one of my strongpoints, obviously)

I was making the dough – had nearly finished making it actually – when I realized that I didn’t have any sprinkles. Since funfetti cookies without sprinkles are a no-go, I figured that I could just roll them in cinnamon sugar and call them snickerdoodles. Surprisingly, it worked out really well!

These cookies straight out of the ovens were just pillows of warm, soft, cookie goodness. Once they cooled they assumed a more traditional soft, chewy center, crisp edges cookie texture, but that was perfectly delicious as well. The recipe was really simple, and the results were delicious. Try it~

P.S. I’m thinking about incorporating some gifs into my posts. They’re fun to make and way cooler to look at that traditional pictures.

Snickerdoodle Cookies

adapted from here

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 ¾ cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 large egg
• 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ¼ cups cornstarch
• ¾ teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Cream the butter and 1 ¼ cups of sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in the egg and two extracts.
3. In another large bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt.
4. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ones until no streaks of flour are visible.
5. Using an ice cream scooper (or just by eyeballing it), make ¼ cup sized balls of dough.
6. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining ½ cup of sugar, and the cinnamon.
7. Roll the balls of dough in the cinnamon sugar mixture, and place on a greased baking sheet.
8. Bake for about 13 minutes at 375 degrees, or until the edges are light golden brown.
9. Let cool on a baking rack for several minutes (or be like me and just burn your tongue), and then enjoy with plenty of milk!