I had made peanut butter cookies with milk chocolate chunks a week or two ago (from the first Baked cookbook), but was drawn to this recipe because of the oats, and there's no rule on how often peanut butter-based desserts can be made, so I went for it. I tweaked it a bit to maximize healthiness by lowering sugar and replacing some of the fat with banana puree, and made the cookies tiny because, well, I love making cookies tiny. They came together easily (even with my modifications), and came out super-moist and crumbly. In a good way. The oats give a little chew, which I like.
Concurrently, I've been wanting to make homemade Nutella for awhile now - I think I say that out loud every time we pass it in the grocery store. So much added sugar, but so good. But hazelnuts are slightly expensiver than other nuts, and slightlier harder to find (spellcheck hates this sentence), so I opted for peanuts. I thought it would accomplish the same things as the frosting recipe that came with those cookies, but with a dark chocolate kick. Mmm. Death by chocolate kicks. Not a bad way to go out.
I followed this recipe, and when I realized I didn't have quite enough peanuts, I added in some almonds and a few walnuts. Roasting them was fun. "Liquefying" them, however, was not. I think it may have broken my processor. I started getting whiffs of burnt-plastic after a few minutes. That's really more of a commentary on how old my processor is, and not the consistency of the mixture. Unfortunately, it did make me stop blending just before I got to that perfect, glossy, smooth texture. It ended up the consistency of natural creamy peanut butter - a little bit gritty, but not unpleasantly so. The taste is amazing: super earthy and thick - the chocolate is almost an afterthought. I think Micah likes it more than I do because of that - it's basically peanut butter with a bit of chocolate.
So. I had these two things. We've been eating them separately the last day or two, but I knew the inevitable was coming: peanutella whoopie pies. Tiny cookies make the best whoopie pies - so much easier to eat, and you can have a more proportional frosting to cookie ratio. These were a natural combination, obviously. A double dose of peanut buttery goodness. Milk accompaniment highly recommended.