Leaving Columbus for a quick Chicago jaunt…which means I’m on a bus with wifi and readers at my mercy. Evil laughter and all that.

These cookies are incredibly simple and good enough to serve as currency (In fact, they’re how I paid for my last bit of couch surfing.)

The vegan variation is less tested than the original, but was successful the last time I tried. I’m sure much of the potential variation comes from different vegan chocolate spreads. I used this one, which is barely sweetened and a little too thick, but worked well otherwise.

– 2 eggs
 vegan: two mashed bananas
– 1 cup Nutella….and then lots more for filling. Trust me on this.
 vegan: any chocolate spread substitute–there are quite a few
– 1 cup peanut butter
– heaping 1/2 cup sugar
vegan: vegan Nutella substitutes are often less sweet, I’d use 2/3 cup or more.

Preheat oven to 350.

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Roll the dough into balls about 2/3 to 3/4 the size of a golf ball. Space widely on an ungreased baking sheet. Unlike the simple peanut butter cookies that this recipe is modeled off, these will spread as they cook, and I put nine to a sheet to compensate.

Press each cookie twice with a fork (run it under cold water between every two balls of dough to prevent sticking), and put the pan in the oven. (If you’re confused by the fork instructions, it should look like this, and you want the cookies to be about 1/2 in thick after you’ve pressed them.)

Bake for about fifteen minutes, or, if you’re me, put them in the oven, forget to set a time, get distracted in conversation for at least ten minutes, spend last five minutes checking them constantly.

Do not remove them from the pan for at least five minutes. They will break, you will be sad, and in your sadness, you will have to eat all the broken cookie pieces. Wait…

After five minutes, transfer them to a cooling rack (or plates, if you don’t have one). The cookies are still fragile, and need to lie flat. Avoid stacking. When the cookies are barely warm to touch, you can make the sandwich part. Spread one tablespoon’s worth of Nutella on the bottom of one cookie, then stick it to the bottom of a second.

Eat.

Repeat.

[If you get impatient and make the cookie sandwiches too early, the Nutella will melt and make a huge mess. You can counteract it a little by sticking them in the fridge or eating them all immediately.]