It’s snowing in Dayton.  The view from my living room window is like living inside a snow globe.  It’s glorious, and weather like this makes me want to throw on my cozy pajamas and put my KitchenAid mixer to good use.  Even though I ate my weight in sweets over the holidays, there is nothing I’d rather do more on a snowy afternoon than bake cookies.

As I was scouring through my ratty old binder of recipes, I was reminded of a time a few years ago when I was working for a large catering company.  We were winding down from a busy holiday season, exhausted and elated.   A large group of us headed out to a bar to throw back a few beers, and exchange banquet serving battle stories.  One of the cooks and I got to talking about some of our favorite cookies.  I was a few beers deep and we were ranking our favorites slurring at each other “SNICKERDOODLES, NO WAY MAN, THE ONES WITH THE HERSHEY’S ON TOP – THOSE ARE THE BEST!”  My buddy then told me his favorite: peanut butter cookies – always a classic.  He had the best recipe and it was only 3 ingredients.  I was incredulous and told him I had to go home and give these 3 ingredient cookies a whirl.  I paid my tab, grabbed my coat, and I stumbled home.  This is about the time where I should tell people that I do not condone the act of drinking and baking.  But I was on a mission:  drunk as a skunk or not – these cookies needed to be made.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur.  The good news is, I didn’t wake up to a smoke filled house or the fire department banging down my door.  In other good news:  Drunk Tess left sober Tess the nicest gift to wake up to: delicious peanut butter cookies.  Thinking back on that night with a sigh of relief that no one was harmed during the production of these cookies, I decided to make them again, sober this time, and they are just as delicious sans hangover.  As I was waiting the 6-8 minutes for the cookies to come together, I thought about booze and baking.  On the one hand, a terrible idea, but what if instead of consuming booze before baking, I started putting together recipes that were inspired by booze?

Thus begins the first part of my new series on Ciao Vella called Boozy Baking.  Each month, I will have a new original recipe based on some of my favorite cocktails.  As we well know: chances are, not every baked good will be a winner, but we are going to have (responsible) fun trying!  I’m looking forward to next month’s first original Boozy Baking recipe, and in the meantime here is the ever-famous 3 ingredient peanut butter cookie recipe.  Looking for the perfect wine to pair with these simple sweets?  Try a port from Kopke! Ciao!

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)  

1 egg

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In mixer, combine all 3 ingredients

Shape into small balls and place on lined baking sheet

Score tops of cookies in a lattice shape with fork

Bake 6-8 minutes
(Makes 12 small cookies)