Homemade Nutter Butters

This week was the last meeting of my seminar class for the spring semester.  In honor of this momentous occasion, we decided to have a little party. I found this recipe on Decorate This! at the beginning of Lent and decided I had to try these out when Lent was over.  Seeing as I shouldn't eat an entire batch of nutter butters by myself, I thought this party would be the best excuse to make them.  This was a complicated recipe and unfortunately, I still am in the habit of looking at the picture, buying the ingredients and hunkering down to bake when in reality I should really read the instructions first.  This recipe called for two hours of dough refrigeration and two hours of freezing the dough once you cut it. I made some changes with these instructions because A. I like my sleep and B. I was making these the night before and had to be in class all day before the celebration so the only time was to do it that night. I also did not have the time to do the intricate buttercream recipe for the inside of the nutter butters so I went out on my own with that one!
Nutter Butter Cookies (adapted from Bouchon Bakery by way of Decorate This!)

Cookie Ingredients 

1/4 salted peanut halves
1 1/4 cup + 2 1/2 T all-purpose flour
1 3/4 t + 1/8 t baking soda
3/4 t baking powder
7.4 oz unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 Cup + 1 T lightly packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 vanilla bean
1 1/3 cups old fashioned oats

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda and baking powder

2. Place the butter and peanut butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream on medium speed until it has the consistency of mayonnaise and holds a peak when the paddle is lifted [I don't have a stand mixer so I did this all by hand :)]

3. Add the sugar to the peanut butter  mixture and mix for about 2 minutes until fluffy.

4. Add the eggs and vanilla bean insides and mix on low speed until just incorporated (15-30 seconds). 

5. Add the combined dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing on low speed for 15-30 seconds after each addition.

6. Add the oats and peanuts and mix on low speed until just combined

7. Place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll to 1/4" thick.

8. Use a 3" cutter to  cut the dough, you may need to refrigerate to cut fully [I don't have any cookie cutters yet so I used the top of my pam container instead- great size and easy to cut with]

9. Bake at 325 for 16-18 minutes

10. Cool completely

11. I refrigerated over night to frost in the morning!

Frosting 

*I didn't have confectioners sugar to make frosting but had some left over frosting from birthday cupcake and decided to mix peanut butter and frosting instead!

1. I mixed 1 cup of peanut butter and 1 cup of vanilla frosting and whipped together until fully mixed.

2. Choose cookie pairs of equal size and frost one of the pairs

3. I had more than enough frosting and put a heaping tablespoon between each pair.