Although I cook dinner every single evening, you wouldn’t know it from my recent blog entries. I’ve been what you could call “uninspired”. I love being in the kitchen and I love to write, but lately I haven’t been able to put those two things together and get it my culinary efforts onto the blog. I’ve said this before, but I always struggle with taking the time to photograph my food. I’ve moved my camera closer to the kitchen in hopes of correcting this, but that still hasn’t helped much. What’s a girl to do?

Today I have a new excuse for posting the recipe with promises of the picture to follow-I didn’t read the recipe close enough. I thought I really read it until I started mixing the ingredients together and then I noticed “chill dough for 2 hours”. Now normally this wouldn’t bother me, but one of the reasons I was making these cookies was to bring to our friends who are having us to dinner this evening. When the two hours have passed we will already be sitting in their living room, hopefully sipping champagne! So the baking of the cookies will not take place until the morning and I promise then to photograph the finished product.

The dough for these cookies makes a basic chocolate cookie that you can use a variety of ways. It is from the December issue of Sunset magazine and they list four different ways to dress up the basic recipe. They all sounded good to me, but as soon as I saw the words Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies, I knew what I’d be making!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Thumbprints

10 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
Put chocolates and butter in metal bowl set over a pan filled with 1 inch simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally until melted, then remove from heat and cool slightly. Whisk in eggs and sugar, mixing until combined. Then whisk in flour, baking powder and salt. Chill dough covered, until firm, about 2 hours.

Let dough sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop 1 tablespoon portions of dough, rolling each into a bowl and put onto sheets, about 1″ apart. Press your thumb into the center of each cookie, making a small well. Fill a pastry bag (or use a plastic bag with tip cut off) with peanut butter and pipe about 1 teaspoon peanut butter into each cookie. Bake cookies until they no longer look wet on top, about 8 minutes. let cool on baking sheets. Yield:about 40 cookies

Don’t overbake-these cookies should be slightly gooey.