Few things go as nicely with chocolate as peanut butter. As a young teen, my best friend and I used to actually melt peanut butter and chocolate chips in the microwave and eat it with a spoon! We still laugh about that sometimes. The truth is the chocolate and peanut butter combination is as old as the ingredients themselves, and this home baker is certainly not going to shun tradition.
These cookies are chewy, chocolatey, and peanut buttery good! The chocolate comes in the form of cocoa powder in the cookie dough and the peanut butter comes in the form of peanut butter chips.
Here's how I made them:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup peanut butter chips
While my oven was preheating to 375 degrees (F), I creamed the butter and the brown sugar using my stand mixer. To that, I added the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. In a separate mixing bowl, I combined the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, mixing well. The dry ingredients were added gradually to the wet ingredients, blending until mixed well. Setting aside a palmful of peanut butter chips, the rest were added to the dough and blended to evenly distribute. The dough was dropped by the heaping tablespoon onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, about 2-inches apart.
I pressed my reserved peanut butter chips onto the cookie dough balls, two or three on each, so that they sat nicely on top, looking pretty and peanut buttery (otherwise they'd get hidden in the dough, which is perfectly fine too but I wanted pretty photos).
The cookies went in the oven for 10 minutes, then cooled for a couple minutes on the pan before being moved to a wire rack to cool completely.
Mr. Feedbag was happy to see these cookies sitting by the kitchen window when he got home from work. He's probably a bigger fan of the chocolate peanut butter combo than I am. He even refused to take any to work because he didn't want to share. Oh, Mr. Feedbag, you do know how to flatter me, don't you.
What's the best chocolate and peanut butter treat you've ever tasted? How do you like to combine these flavours in your own kitchen?