Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies (Homemade Do-si-dos)

After having a heck of a week last week, followed by my weekend plans being completely foiled, I decided I needed to do some baking to cheer me up!  And in case you care, I'm pretending last week never happened.  So, in my mind, Saturday was a new start with some new cookies to try!

I know I told you how much my father-in-law loves peanut butter... but what I didn't tell you is that I love it too, like a lot.  :-)  And between me and the Hubby, if we were left in a room with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon, there may or may not be a fight.  We really like it.  So these cookies were the perfect pick-me-up.

To start, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F.  Remember to put out the butter at least an hour in advance to bring to room temperature. 

We will start with the cookies first.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and then set aside.

Next, in a large bowl, cream together butter and peanut butter.

Beat in the sugars until fluffy. 

Then, add in eggs one at a time, making sure each is completely mixed in before adding the next.  Then stir in vanilla.  Continue to mix on a low speed so you can mix in the flour slowly.  After the flour is incorporated, mix in the oats.  Make sure the mixture is well combined.

Now, on a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet, drop heaping teaspoonfuls of batter about 2 inches apart (because they will spread a good bit).

Now, I know you may remember me talking crap about silpat's here.  Well, I'm here to take back my smack talking.  Gasp!!  I had a credit to Amazon and decided to try one.  Insert foot in mouth... they actually are awesome!  The crazy thing is, the two batches of cookies baked on the silpat not only were baked more evenly, but came off the silpat SUPER easy.  And cleaning that thing is a cinch.  So I won't be talking crap about them anymore.  Promise.

Any who, bake for about 10 minutes until the edges start to slightly brown.

My first batch (on the bottom oven shelf with silpat) was done at exactly 10 minutes, but the batch I put in halfway during the first batch took 11 minutes (it was on the top shelf with parchment).

Oh, and one more thing about this, I need to warn you that this recipe makes an obscene amount of cookies.  I ended up making three pans (~60 individual cookies) and then throwing in the towel, but I probably could have made at least two more pans worth!  That's a crap ton o' cookies!  Even when I sandwiched them I still had about 30 cookies!  Below is my leftover batter after making 60 cookies!

Cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack for the rest of the cooling.

The original recipe calls for poking holes in the "top" cookies to make them look like the GS cookies.  I tried this and, to be frank, I thought it looked pretty stupid.  Haha!  Really, no joke:

So I decided not to do that with the following two batches.

Once you have made all the cookies and they are cooling, make the filling.  In a large bowl, cream together smooth peanut butter, butter, and confectioners sugar until completely smooth.  You don't want to use the kind of natural peanut butter that needs to be refrigerated because it likely won't be creamy enough.  I used Jif Natural Creamy Peanut Butter, that does not require refrigeration, and it worked great.

Now that you have your filling, flip half of your cookies over so their bottoms are showing (hehe).  These are the cookies you are going to put the filling on.  The right side up cookies are going to be the tops of the sandwiches.

Place 1-2 tsp of the filling onto the upside-down cookies.  They kinda look like giant Hershey kisses!  :)

Then put the top cookies on (and push down gently) to make the sandwiches.

That's it!  Be sure you have plenty of people to share these with... if not it could be dangerous because they are delicious!

Print this recipe!

Enjoy my friends!  Happy Girl Scout Cookies month ;)

Oh and for those of you who care, I found out Sunday that I am not a black thumb after all!  Yipee!!  It's tulip time:

 

I'm DYING for it to bloom!  But I  think I still have a little while.  Don't you just LOOOVE Spring?!