Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peanut butter is a popular food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanuts that is mainly used as a sandwich spread, sometimes in combination with other spreads such as in the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The United States and China are leading exporters of peanut butter. Other nuts are used as the basis for similar nut butters.

Peanuts are native to the tropics of the Americas and were mashed to become a pasty substance by the Aztec Native Americans hundreds of years ago. Early forms of peanut butter, like the Aztecs’ version, were nothing but a paste made from roasted peanuts. Modern processing machines allow for very smooth products to be made, which often include vegetable oils to aid in its spreadability.

Evidence of peanut butter as it is known today comes from U.S. Patent 306,727, issued in 1884 to Marcellus Gilmore Edson of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, for the finished product of the process of milling roasted peanuts between heated surfaces until the peanuts entered “a fluid or semi-fluid state.” As the peanut product cooled, it set into what Edson explained as being “a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment”. Edson’s patent is based on the preparation of a peanut paste as an intermediate to the production the modern product we know as peanut butter; it does show the initial steps necessary for the production of peanut butter.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented a “Process of Preparing Nut Meal” in 1895 and used peanuts. Kellogg served peanut butter to the patients at his Battle Creek Sanitarium. Dr. Ambrose Straub, a physician in St. Louis, Missouri, pursued a method for providing toothless elderly with protein in the 1890s. His peanut-butter-making machine was patented in 1903.

Peanut butter has a high level of monounsaturated fats and resveratrol. Peanut butter (and peanuts) provides protein, vitamins B₃ and E, magnesium, folate, dietary fiber, arginine, and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid. For people with a peanut allergy, peanut butter can cause reactions, including anaphylactic shock, which has led to its being banned in some schools.

Some brands of peanut butter may contain a small amount of added partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which are high in trans fatty acids that are thought to be a cause of atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, and stroke; these oils are added to prevent the peanut oil from separating from the ground peanuts. Peanuts and natural peanut butter, i.e., ground, dry roasted peanuts without added oils, do not contain partially hydrogenated oils or trans fats.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 Egg, beaten
• 1 cup granulated Sugar
• 1 cup Peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• ¼ cup Dark Chocolate Chips
• ¼ cup Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips
• ¼ cup Bittersweet Chocolate Chips

Mix the egg, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla in a bowl and stir to thoroughly combine. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased baking sheet, approximately 2 inches apart.

Bake at 350 degrees for 11-14 minutes.

Remove from oven, let cool 2 minutes and place on rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Chip Espresso Muffins

A muffin is a type of semi-sweet cake or quick bread that is baked in portions appropriate for one person. They are similar to cupcakes, although they are usually less sweet and lack icing. Savory varieties, such as cornbread muffins or cheese muffins also exist.

The term also refers to a disk-shaped muffin bread, called an English muffin outside the United Kingdom. As American-style muffins are also available in Commonwealth countries, the term muffin can refer to either product, with the context usually making clear which is meant.

There are many varieties of muffins made with a specific ingredient such as blueberries, poppy seeds, raspberry, cinnamon, pumpkin, date, nut, lemon, banana, orange, peach, strawberry, etc. baked into the muffin. Muffins are often eaten for breakfast; alternatively, they may be served for tea or at other meals.

Recipes for muffins, in their yeast-free “American” form, are common in 19th-century American cookbooks. Recipes for yeast-based muffins, also known as “common muffins” or “wheat muffins” can be found in much older cookbooks. In her Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Fannie Farmer gave recipes for both types of muffins, both those that used yeast to raise the dough and those that used a quick bread method.

Chocolate Chip Espresso Muffins

Ingredients:

• ⅔ cup Milk
• 5 tablespoons Butter, melted
• 3 teaspoons of espresso powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons Vanilla extract
• 1 large Egg
• 2 cups all-purpose Flour
• ⅔ cup Sugar
• ½ cup semi-sweet Chocolate chips
• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
• ¼ teaspoon Salt

In medium bowl, mix together the milk, butter, espresso powder, vanilla and egg.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, chocolate chips, baking powder and salt.  Make a well in the center of flour mixture and add the milk mixture.  Stir just until combined – do not overmix!

Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with a non stick spray or line with muffin liners.  Divide batter evenly among sprayed or lined cups.  Bake at 400 degrees for 18 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove muffins from pan immediately and place on a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.