Admit it, at some point in your life you ate one, well, probably many, TOO many scout cookies. The little rascals know they have the goods and hold it over your head once a year, like a carrot for you, the donkey. I should know. I spent many a spring of my youth peddling those cookies and three times as long as an adult chasing that carrot. Well, my friend, you shall be that ass no more. I have found the mother load! The recipes to fill that cookie urge any time of year, without having to pay $5 per box! Listen and learn grasshoppers....
Peanut Butter Addiction
Put 2.5 sticks of butter and a cup of sugar in a bowl and mix until creamy. Add 2 eggs and beat until mixed through, scraping the bowl as you go. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and beat again. Turn mixer on low and add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 3 cups of flour. Now beat that batter like a red-headed step-child. The dough will be crumbly but moist when it's done. Pack the dough onto some plastic wrap and roll into a 2 inch diameter cylinder. Trust me, don't make it any thicker or your cookies will be too big. Wrap the whole thing (probably a couple cylinders) into parchment paper and freeze for about half an hour.
When the dough has sufficiently hardened, take it out and slice it into 1/8" discs and place them on a baking sheet about an inch apart (they won't spread while cooking). Bake at them 350 degrees for 8 minutes, not nine, not seven, and take them out to cool on a cooling rack completely. They should not have browned in the oven at all.
Mix together equal parts of peanut butter and powdered sugar (about 1/2 cup each). Form little balls and flatten them then lay them on the cooled cookies. Dip each cookie in melted chocolate chips and lay on parchment paper to cool (refrigerating speeds this process).
Thus ends part 1 of 3 of how to free yourselves from the ties of the communist regime that call themselves scouts. Stay tuned for the mint and caramel recipes.
