A weblog of culinary experiences
We ran out of the last cookies so I knew it was time to bake more. These come from a recipe in The Cookie Book but it's very similar to one on the back of the bag of peanut butter chips. I'm sure the peanut butter chips have very little to do with actual peanut butter, but that may be a good thing as it makes the cookies taste even more like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The recipe in the book is for chocolate chocolate chip cookies, but I find those to be a bit overwhelming with chocolate so I switched the chocolate chips for peanut butter ones. (Nadia does not share my distrust of chocolate and would probably love to have such cookies.) I find that when the chocolate is just in the cookie dough, it acts as a nice background flavor for the peanut butter. I've also had good results using white chocolate chips and chocolate dough to create a kind of reverse chocolate chip cookie. These cookies, with the peanut butter chips, are quite good. I made sure to cream the butter well with the sugar and chilled the dough so they came out light and puffy. They hold up pretty well in terms of chewiness for a few days. After that, you can resort to microwaving them for a few seconds to bring them back to life. Nadia also wants me to mention that when you eat these cookies with beer, they taste like almonds. Weird and wild stuff.
Chocolate Cookies with Peanut Butter Chips
Adapted from Got Milk? The Cookie Book
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
1 large egg
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (approx 5 oz) peanut butter chips
Preheat oven to 350°r;. In a medium bowl, cream butter, sugar, salt and vanilla. Beat in the cocoa powder, then the egg. In another bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix until well combined. Gently mix in the peanut butter chips with a spatula or fork. Shape the dough into 1 1/2-inch diameter balls and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes. Arrange balls onto ungreased baking sheets. They shouldn't spread much, so you can pack them pretty tightly -- about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes.