Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich Cookies

Directions

1. Cookies
2. Beat softened butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks, salt and vanilla. Slowly add powdered peanut butter and flour in stages, beating just until combined. You'll need to finish stirring the dry ingredients with a spatula. To get a perfectly formed round cookie, divide dough in half, placing each half on a large piece of plastic wrap in an approximate cylinder shape. Roll up and tie a piece of string to one end of the plastic wrap then thread the string through an empty paper towel tube and slowly pull on the string until the cookie cylinder redistributes and is entirely inside of the tube. Repeat with the second half of the cookie dough. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight. If the cylinder doesn't easily pull out of the tube, then cut the tube. Alternately, you may just free form the cylinder shape.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F . Slice cookies into disks ~ 1/4 inch thick. Place on parchment lined cookie sheet, placing the cookies close together as they don't spread. Bake ~ 10-12 minutes until just starting to brown around the edges. Cool completely before gently removing from cookie sheet (they are tender).
4. Pair cookies of similar sizes together, dolloping or piping filling between. Enjoy!

1. Banana Peanut Butter Filling
2. Melt butter in a small saucepan. While the butter is melting, peel and smash the bananas well (you should have ~ 6-7 ounces of banana). Add the smashed bananas to the melted butter and cook over medium-low heat for ~ 2 minutes. Remove to separate dish and cool completely.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine peanut butter, cream cheese and confectioners sugar. Begin by stirring by hand and then use beaters to fully combine. When the cooked banana mixture is completely cool add it to the cream cheese/peanut butter mixture along with a pinch of salt. Beat well until fully combined. I like to refrigerate the mixture for 15 minutes and then beat one last time as this results in a fluffier mixture. Scrape into a piping bag or use an offset spatula to fill cookies.