Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting

I decided a while back that I wanted to make peanut butter cookies. I love peanut butter cookies, but I don't have a specific recipe that I use. My Dad doesn't like peanut butter, and especially dislikes the smell of hot peanut butter permeating the house. So we don't bake them when he's home, or when he's going to be home soon. 

That being the case, I went on Pinterest to find a recipe to try. And I found this one. And it's a good one. It's for sandwich cookies, but I didn't make them into sandwiches. I did half the batch the other night, to take to a friend's house, and a few days later made the rest of the batch. This time, I decided that I wanted frosting on them. But the frosting in the recipe is only peanut butter and powdered sugar, which didn't sound that great. So I made up a frosting recipe. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter frosting 

3 cups powdered sugar

1 Tbsp cocoa powder

2 Tbsp butter, melted

1/4 cup peanut butter

Pinch salt

3-6 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients together, adding milk slowly until frosting reaches the desired consistency.

This is the part of the recipe where it's very important to not inhale too deeply. Between the cocoa and the sugar, there's a lot of fine powder swirling about in the air. It's hard to follow a recipe when you can't breathe.

 You can mix it at this point, but the peanut butter will still be a little thick. It will ball up more like cookie dough than frosting.

 That's why you add the milk. As usual, with liquid in something like this, add it slowly, one Tbsp at a time. Some days, you may need more, some you may need less. If you add too much, put in a little more powdered sugar to thicken it up again.

 I was tasting the frosting as I worked on it, and it just wasn't working quite like I wanted it. You know how sometimes, you get a plan in mind for what you want, and it simply won't turn out the way you want? I was debating adding more cocoa, but didn't think it would actually work. Then I hit on the idea of vanilla. So many recipes have vanilla, even if it's supposed to be chocolate or some other flavour. I figured I may as well give it a go. And it was exactly what the recipe needed.

 The frosting has nicely balanced flavours. You can taste the chocolate and the peanut butter. It's great eaten right off the the spoon if you go for that. You can alter the texture as you like, adding more milk to make it a glaze, or more sugar to make it more solid. Heck, add a bunch of sugar and some walnuts, and call it fudge. Pretty sure it would be delicious.

 And, of course, it's good on peanut butter cookies. Try the link I posted at the top of the blog, or use your own favourite recipe. I'm sure it'll taste just as good.

Eat them with a nice cup of coffee (how do you like that cup? An estate sale find...I love my coffee cups. Have I mentioned that it's a bit of an addiction?). The cookies aren't the best texture for dunking (a little too crumbly, and I don't like oats in the bottom of my coffee cup...), but they're good with coffee anyway, so just don't dunk them.