I found this in a little grocery-store recipe book called Home-Tested Cookie Recipes. When I Googled the recipe name, I found the same recipe all over. My dad makes penuche (he spells it panoche) and dips it in milk chocolate. It is one of my favorite candies so no big surprise I liked these cookies. I made them with some super tangy apple butter. We made it from little green apples we picked from a tree at the inn where we stayed in Downieville, California when I went mountain biking there in 2006. The cookies are a bit soft. We made some of them into whoopie pies*.
Ingredients:
½ cup sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup unsweetened apple butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2 cup all-purpose flour, 9 ounces
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup cream or half-and-half
1 ½ to 2 ¼ cup powdered sugar
Directions:
Heat Oven to 350 degrees.
Line cookie sheets with parchment.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
Beat white sugar, ½ cup brown sugar and 1 cup butter until creamy.
Add apple butter, vanilla and egg. Beat until light and fluffy.
Add flour mixture. Beat again until well combined.
Stir in nuts.
Drop by tablespoons 2-inches apart onto sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are light brown. Put on wire rack to cool. Frost with Penuche icing.
Frosting:
Melt 3 tablespoons of butter and ½ cup brown sugar in saucepan. Bring to boil and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute or until slightly thickened.
Remove from heat and cool 10 minutes (mixture will begin to harden).
Add cream and stir until smooth.
Add powdered sugar 1/4 cup at a time, beating well after each addition, until frosting reaches desired consistency.
Ice cookies. You can put icing on the bottom of one cookie and press the bottom of another on top to form a whoopie pie*.
Notes:
I used pecans rather than walnuts because I always replace walnuts with pecans.
I just used milk in the icing. I am sure it would be creamier with cream or half-and-half but milk was just fine for me.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoopie_pie
Little green apples picked from trees on the side of the road are the best!