Stop whatever you are doing. Stop now. Get thee to a supermarket, buy the ingredients for these cookies, go home and make them. It is a must. They are simply that good. I know there are a few very strange people out there who claim that they dislike the combo of peanut butter and chocolate. They are weird and I am going to pretend for the rest of this post that they don't exist.
As most of you will know my husband is a freak for peanut butter. He adores it, as do my children. We go through two jars of the stuff a week. Peanut butter on toast, peanut butter on crumpets, peanut butter on fruit toast, peanut butter on a spoon, the list goes on and on and on. I like the it, but it is not my be all and end all. Unless of course you combine it with chocolate, and then it is my place to be.
So you can imagine my glee when my husband requested peanut butter and chocolate baked goods to celebrate what he calls his birthday week. I scoured the internet looking for inspiration, and inspiration I found in the form of cookies. There were so many recipes to choose from, but the ones by How Sweet It Is ticked all of the right boxes for me. Everyone has their cookie criteria. Thin or thick. Soft, hard or chewy. Full of choc chips or just a smattering. I am a thick, soft, full kinda girl. I do like a chewy cookie too, but I think of Anzacs when I think chewy. Choc chip cookies say soft to me. These said thick, soft, full to me. And they had peanut butter within their thick, soft, fullness. Ingredients were bought, and then Will and I set to work.
We melted the peanut butter and butter together and set it aside to cool. We combined the flour and the bicarb soda. We added the sugar to the butter mixture, and then added the eggs to this mixture. We gradually added the flour to this lovely brown combination, and then stirred in the choc chips. Small balls of the dough were placed on a baking sheet, and they were cooked for ten minutes.
When they came out of the oven I was quite confident that we had discovered greatness. They looked like hero cookies. The recipe called for a period of cooling. Will and I struggled to comply with this direction. We felt compelled to try one while it was still warm and oozing chocolate from its inner core. And my oh my were we glad that we did. My boxes had indeed been ticked.
Suffice is to say that these cookies will be made again in this house. And again. And again. And again.
{Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies}
adapted from How Sweet It Is
Makes 24+ cookies
2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
115g salted butter
85g smooth peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk, room temperature and lightly beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 - 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 165 degrees C. Line two baking sheets with baking paper.
Melt the butter and peanut butter together in the microwave in fifteen second bursts until it is combined. Set aside to completely cool.
Combine flour and bicarb soda.
Once butter mixture is completely cool, add sugars and combine. Add eggs and vanilla to this mixture. Once combined, gradually add flour to form a dough. Add chocolate chips to the dough and combine.
Place small balls of dough on a baking sheet, far enough apart to let them spread while baking, and place them in the oven for 10-12 minutes. They should come out of the oven when they are ever so slightly brown. They will still be quite soft at this point but will firm up upon cooling.
Cool, then eat! Or maybe you could skip the cooling part and go straight to the eating part. Your choice!
A few notes about this recipe ~
I know I always bang on about it, but your cookies will be drastically improved if you can get your hands on some good quality vanilla extract. Don't use essence. It just doesn't cut it.
It is really important that you let the butter mixture cool properly or the biscuits won't be the successful pillows of goodness that they should. Shove it in the fridge to speed up the process if you must, but make sure you don't then let it chill.
I did try to get my hands on some American peanut butter for this recipe but was unsuccessful, so good old Kraft it was. I would like to try it with the American stuff some time soon. I'll keep you posted as to how they turn out. We used smooth PB for our cookies, but I think crunchy would be great too. Give it a try!
I never thought I would hear myself say this, but I think one and a half cups of choc chips was a little excessive. Next time we make them we will go for one cup. If your preference is for an overload of choc chips then one and half cups it is.
Susie xx
Still making these. Best ever.
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