Crunchy Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookie Birthday Cake

My Loves Kitchen Play List: P!nk ~ So What
                                                        Garbage ~ Can't Cry These Tears
                                                        The Cure ~ Let's Go To Bed
                                                        The O'Jays ~ Love Train
                                                        Garbage ~ Special
                                                        Sheryl Crow ~ Live it Up
                                                        Franz Ferdinand ~ Walk Away
                                                        PJ Harvey ~ Legs
                                                        KT Tunstall ~ (Still a) Weirdo
                                                                              (My Love's life theme tune..lol)

An alternative to birthday cake, no? lol

Twas my kid brothers birthday celebration on Saturday although his birthday is actually Monday. But he was visiting for the day so we decided to throw him a small surprise aided and abetted by my sister and her little ones and our other nephew. My brother tries to enjoy vegan cake but he just doesn't and I long ago grew tired of having to listen to his many excuses to not eat all of his share of at celebrations. And that's not a negative thing...I'm perfectly accepting that some people just don't get the vegan lifestyle. Strange folk that they are. lol. But my brother does like the cookies..lol. And in particular the Peanut Butter kind...if he could worship at the altar of Peanut Butter he would..that I am sure. lol. 

As I almost always make cakes, cupcakes or cookies for everyones birthday I had decided this year to make him a stack of Peanut Butter Cookies Birthday Cake. But as I am off kitchen duties I was getting a little stressed about getting it made for him. Enter...My Love who took my shopping list...went shopping...came back and baked off two batches of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Crunchy Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookies from the great cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance

Another view of the cookie stack..lol

Thank goodness for My Love...who was very tired after a very busy week at work and worrying about my health..poor love...a couple of hours later the cookies were out of the oven, off the cooling trays and on the racks to finish the cooling period. The house smelt so good..lol. 

On the day myself, My Love, my sister and the little ones had spent the morning on and off,  practicing their somewhat tuneful chorus of Happy Birthday...lol. So lunch was had and then the little ones were playing and finally my brother arrived at our door and when he came into the lounge he was greeted by the Happy Birthday chorus from the little ones as My Love nipped out to the kitchen to stack some cookies, light the orange candle and slowly bring it through. After another chorus of Happy Birthday and with a little help from N to help blow the candle out...we all sat down to munch on a cookie a piece whilst N helped my brother open his cards etc. lol. It was a little celebration but my brother really appreciated it. And he went home with a huge box of huge cookies. 

A Plate of Crunchy Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookies. Well we did say they were huge cookies..lol.

These cookies are massive..it has to be said. They are rich and sweet and a little of one goes a long way. But we did get the 12 per batch as the recipe suggested we would. My Love who is blog shy and declined to write a guest post...said that the recipe is straight forward and there were no mishaps. The recipe below is for 12 huge cookies. Thank you once again to Isa for a fab recipe..and we urge you to buy the book if you haven't already. 

A close up...can you smell the soft peanut buttery goodness and the wholesome oats...Mmmm so good! lol

And once again a special thank you to My Love who baked the cookies...and made sure I stayed off my feet whilst all this mad, chaotic family fun went on around me...lol. 

Big Crunchy Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Cookes Makes 12
(Recipe from Vegan with a Vengence/Moskowitz)

225g/8oz plain flour
175g/6oz rolled oats
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
175ml/6fl oz rapeseed oil (or Sunflower)
175g/6oz crunchy peanut butter (approx 12 tbsp)
200g/7oz granulated sugar
225g/8oz brown sugar
125ml/4fl oz vanilla soy milk or reg soy milk 
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180'C/350'F/Gas Mark 4. Lightly grease two baking sheets or line with parchment. 

Toss together the flour, oats, baking powder, and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl mix together the oil, peanut butter, sugars, soy milk and vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix. The dough will be very firm and moist. For perfectly round, large cookies: pack 5 tbsp dough into a cup, pop out and roll the dough into a firm ball and flatten just barely on a prepared baking sheet. Spacing the dough ball evenly apart! Lightly grease the bottom of a glass or heavy ceramic plate to flatten to a 1 cm thickness. Leave about 2.5 cm in between the flattened cookies as these will spread out slightly. Bake for 12 -15 minutes till the cookies have puffed a bit and are lightly browned. Allow to cool at least 10 minutes to firm up before moving off the baking sheet. You can also make normal sized cookies using 1 - 2 tbsp of dough instead, baking these 8 - 10 minutes. 

Enjoy cookie heaven! 
~R~