She don't use jelly....

In my on-going Cookies A to Z quest, I am finally on the letter J. There are not a lot of cookie recipes out there that start with the letter J except cookies with jams or jellies. Since I had already done Austrian Jam cookies for the letter A (in retrospect, I probably should have made something with applesauce for the letter A...), I selected PB & J cookies for the letter J. This recipe is from The Cookie and Biscuit Bible by Catherine Atkinson p. 140.

The recipe said to roll the dough into little balls about the size of a walnut. The dough was a little dry, so the rolling part wasn't the easiest, but it wasn't impossible either. For the first few that I rolled, I was picturing an already cracked walnut...so I made them a little small. Then it dawned on me that they probably meant a walnut still in it's shell...which makes more sense because why would the author pick an non-round object to decribe the size to roll something into?

The recipe called for seedless rasberry jam for the filling, but I could only find rasberry jam with seeds....so I went with 2 different fillings, both from Trader Joes:
- Trader Joe's Organic Strawberry Jam
- Trader Joe's Seedless Blackberry Preserves
The strawberry jam was a little too thin and didn't really hold up that well against of the weight of the cookies. The blackberry preserves, however, were great.

8 oz crunchy peanut butter with no sugar added (I used Trader Joe's Crunchy Salted Natural Peanut Butter)
6 tbsp unsalted sweet butter at room tempeture, diced
1/2 cup golden caster (superfine) sugar (I didn't have this so I used regular old table sugar)
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 1/4 cups self rising flour
1 cup favorite jam or jelly

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Put the peanut butter and butter in a large bowl and beat together until well combined and creamy.

2. Add the caster and brown sugars and mix. Add the beaten egg and blend well. Sift in the flour and mix to a stiff dough.

3. Roll the dough into walnut-size balls (uncracked walnuts apparently) between the palms of your hands. Place the balls on the prepared baking sheets and gently flatten each one with the back of a fork to make a rough-textured cookie with a ridged surface (Don't worry if the dough cracks slightly).

4. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until cooked but not browned. Using a palette knife (metal spatula) transfer to a wire rack to cool.

5. Spoon jam on to one cookie and top with a second. Continue to sandwich the cookies in this way.

KRD NOTE: I assembled the cookies as we were eating them so that they didn't get too soggy. I got 46 single cookies out of this dough, so 23 when sandwiched.