new favorite thing: vegan peanut butter chocolate pillows

Vegan Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows
image pulled from Diary of a Vegan

About a year ago, Hanna and I bought the amazing Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I do not exaggerate when I say we have loved every single cookie recipe we've made out of Vegan Cookies. Since neither of us are vegan, we occasionally substitute dairy products (butter, milk) for the nondairy ingredients, but we've had equally good luck with nondairy alternatives such as soy milk.

Over the Christmas weekend we made a new recipe from the book, the Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows. Neither Hanna nor I are big into peanut butter cookies, so we hadn't tried them before. But for some reason they sounded good on Sunday so I made them.

This quite possibly was a mistake.

Because they were AWESOME.

Here's the recipe.

VEGAN PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE PILLOWS

Makes 2 dozen (24) cookies

For the Chocolate Dough:

1/2 cup canola oil

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

3 tablespoons nondairy milk

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons black unsweetened cocoa powder or more regular unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the Filling:

3/4 cup natural salted peanut butter, crunchy or creamy style [or any other nut butter that strikes your fancy]

2/3 cup powdered sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons soy creamer or nondairy milk

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine oil, sugar, maple syrup, nondairy milk, and vanilla and mix until smooth. Sift in flour, cocoa powder, black cocoa powder if using, baking soda, and salt. Mix to form a moist dough.

2. Make the peanut butter filling: In another mixing bowl, use a hand mixer to beat together peanut butter, powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons of the soy creamer, and vanilla to form a moist but firm dough. If peanut butter dough is dry and crumbly (natural peanut butters have varying moisture contents), stir in the remaining tablespoon of nondairy milk. If dough is too wet knead in a little extra powdered sugar.

3. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper [or tinfoil].

Shape the Cookies:

1. Create the centers of the cookies by rolling the peanut butter dough into twenty-four balls (try dividing dough in half, then each part in half again and roll each portion into six balls). Scoop a generous tablespoon of chocolate dough, flat¬ten into a thin disc, and place a peanut butter ball in the center. Fold the sides of the chocolate dough up and around the peanut butter center and roll into a smooth ball between your palms. Place on a sheet of waxed paper and repeat with remaining dough. If desired, gently flatten cookies slightly, but this is not necessary.

2. Place the dough balls on lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the sheet from the oven and let the cookies stand for 5 minutes before moving them to wire racks to complete cooling. Store cookies in tightly covered container.