I am rather busy at the moment having started a new job and sorting out all sorts of things that have been put on hold while I was in Africa.

I therefore didn’t have a whole long morning to have a leisurely brunch this weekend. Instead I had to have a brunch treat that I could take with me on a run of errands. A muffin would have been the obvious choice but I fancied something a little naughtier and also quick to make, so I thought of cookies.

There are quite a few recipes for breakfast cookies; usually oat based ones, made from similar ingredients found in morning muesli. I will probably feature such cookies in the future but this time I went for a typical American peanut butter cookie. Peanut butter is a typical breakfast ingredient after all, is it not?!

I brought some nice peanut butter with me from Botswana, where I found almost as many peanut butter variations as in the shops of New York. A version with swirls of chocolate was one of my “souvenirs” and it is this one I used for my cookies. I’m sure any plain peanut butter would suffice, as long as it’s creamy but the swirls of chocolate in my Botswana one made the cookies a little more chocolate’y.

The recipe also requires Reeses Pieces, the American peanut butter sweets with their orange, yellow and brown candy shells, that make them look like retro coloured M&Ms. They are hard to find out of the US, so if you struggle you could maybe substitute them with Smarties.

This recipe is from Betty Crocker.

For about 24 Peanut Butter Cookies you need:

• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup butter or margarine, softened
• ½ cup creamy peanut butter
• ½ tsp vanilla essence
• 1 egg
• 1¼ cups flour
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 ¼ Reeses Pieces (or Smarties)

Preheat the oven to 350°F and lightly grease a baking tray (brush with a little oil or spray with a light oil spray)

Mix the flour with the cocoa and baking powder in a bowl. In another, bigger bowl beat the sugar and margarine with an electric whisk until creamy, and then add the peanut butter, the egg and vanilla essence.

Stir in the cocoa-flour mix and the Reeses Pieces.

Take an ice cream scoop and drop scoops of cookie dough onto the baking tray, leaving enough space in between them to allow them to flatten and spread during the baking.

Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges are set (the centres should still be soft).

Cool them on their tray for1 minute then remove from tray to a cooling rack, to let them cool down completely for about 30 minutes.