Pizza & Dressed up Peanut Butter Cookies

School's out! Its school's 1 week break now and I get to spend lots of time with my 2 sweeties at home. We did lot's of fun stuff together, playing teatime, going swimming and even painting toe nails etc. And since it was rainy today, I figured we do something fun at home instead. So instead of the usual noodles and rice for lunch, I suggested making their favorite pizza (Hawaiian) together and they both jumped for joy! My kids love pizza...I'm sure yours too. I guess besides that, my girls know that they can get their hands on the dough and have some fun!

I know, why take the trouble to make pizza?! Why not just call and delivery?! Well, somehow I feel homemade pizza is a healthier choice, you get the choose the better ingredients...you never know what extra topping they put in your delivered pizza?! *just kidding, haha!*

We did some kneading together, but this new dough recipe I used is harder to knead and my girls just gave up and watch me do it, haha. But they did help me with the toppings. :) This recipe is pretty basic, just the kneading part needs more work:

Ingredients for Pizza Dough:
100g Bread flour
100g cake flour
10g caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2g Instant yeast (about 1/2 tsp)
110ml water

Method:

• Place all ingredients in a mixing bowl and incorporate till everything comes together into a dough.
• Knead the dough till it's surface is smooth.
• Place the dough in a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let proof for at least 60 mins.

For recipe for the tomato sauce and topping, please refer to my previous Hawaiian pizza post.

One of the main difference in making this pizza is that I actually stuffed some mozzarella cheese on the edge of the dough and roll in to make the wall around it. See picture below:

The stuffed cheese gives extra texture and flavor, really yummy! Think I'm gonna stuff cheese in my pizza dough edge from now on. ;)

So what's for desert? Well, my girls have been asking me why I have not baked any cookies for them lately. Ooops.. heehee. So today I decided to make some peanut butter cookies for them. Then I thought it'll be really fun for them to help me "dress up" the cookies. We decorated the cookies in 2 ways, one of them is as below:

Actually I got inspired by Bakerella's Perfectly Peanut Cookie recipe, but I thought I modified it to suit my family taste:

Ingredients for Peanut Butter Cookie:
1 cup of smooth peanut butter
60g of plain flour
50g of unsalted butter, room temperature
115g caster sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
75g semisweet chocolate melted
1/2 cup finely chopped peanuts
1/4 cup chocolate rice
1/4 cup multi-colored candy rice
1/2 cup M&Ms

Method:

• Cream the butter and sugar together. When it's well mixed, add egg and stir till incorporated.
• Add peanut butter and stir well till everything is blend in. Add flour and salt and continue to mix till it come together.
• Refrigerate dough for at least 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Take dough out and divide into 20 to 22 balls. Half of the cookies for M&Ms and the other half for dipping in chocolate.
  
• For dipping in chocolate ones, use a fork to press the cookies both vertically and horizontally to make a criss-cross pattern.

• Bake the cookies for 15 to 18 minutes till the edges turn golden brown.
• Cool the cookies on rack before decorating them.
• Dip one 1/3 of the cookie in chocolate and then into either chocolate rice / multi-colored rice / ground peanut.
• Place on wax paper and refrigerate till the chocolate set.
• For the other set of cookies for M&M, just press the M&Ms into the cookie dough and press slightly to make a flat disc.
• Bake at 180°C for 15 to 18 minutes till edges are golden brown.

These cookies has a crunch and rich buttery & peanut taste, but not too sweet, so it goes well with the chocolate and M&Ms. A must try for peanut butter lovers!
I had lots of fun with my girls today baking all these goodies. I'm sure they enjoy eating them as much as I making and eating them too. ;)