PB and Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Delicately crisped edged, soft, chewy centers, these cookies have the texture of a perfect chocolate chip cookie but with a peanut butter base.  Utterly decadent.  

Have you ever had a moment in your life where you sit back, bask in your own cleverness, and revel in all of the external and internal factors aligning so perfectly that you cannot quite believe this magical, fleeting moment is truly yours?  In movies, this feeling is often depicted with the hero/ine holding the scene, a wisp of breath shared between their true love and themselves after that first kiss, or an artist holding the audience in the palm of their hand, spellbound in the moment right before the applause starts. It’s the moment a dancer hits the peak of a perfectly executed grand jetee, or a writer so develops a character they twist the plot in a completely different but natural direction that elevates the storytelling to a different level.In everyday life, it can be the sigh of relief you breathe in when you receive a good job performance review, or the sweetly delicious sip of coffee at 6 am before the madness of the day starts, knowing that you already have dinner taken care of.  Those moments can be monumental events, or just slivers of an hour in an ordinary day.

Such moments, however infrequent, strike at the most unexpected of times.  For me, one of those moments of absolute clarity and calm was during my Master’s Recital.  That performance, though not perfect, was an excellent cumulation of the hard work and retraining of my vocal technique during my time studying for my Masters.  As my dress rehearsal had been an absolute train wreck, there was something about the ethereal calm and electricity in the performance hall that night that led to no fear, and a chance for things to naturally fall into place.  I fully expected to be a tightly wound bundle of anxiety that night, and to my exhilarated surprise, the performance was not the complete nightmare I had haunting my dreams leading up to the date.In true karmic fashion, other instances that I anticipated to go well were an epic failure, previous auditions or examinations that I did not think would trouble me shook the rug out from under my well polished heels.  Such is the nature of those perfect, and also imperfect, moments.

Rich, with amazing texture, these PB and Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies are a bit nutty, a bit fruity from the bittersweet chocolate, and a perfect balance of salty and sweet.

Before we had left to visit family, I had become obsessed with trying to create a new cookie recipe.  Something that did not require long hours for the dough to mature, but still had nuance and depths of flavor like my beloved Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  I wanted a chewy, crisped edged cookie with a softer center, and I wanted the centers to contain a bit of gooey deliciousness. And ultimately I wanted to create a cookie that had a delicate peanut butter flavor in the dough itself, but without the traditional texture of crisp peanut butter cookies.  I also, for whatever reason, did not want an incredibly thick cookie, rather something that was kind of dainty and delicate and would not be out of place with a cup of tea.

Unlike so many other thin cookies, these PB and Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies maintain the delicate chewy texture thicker cookies have.  No overly crispy thin cookies here!

Drawing upon the failed attempts of prior cookie baking expeditions from the past, I felt a bit like Goldilocks as attempt after attempt fell short of what I was envisioning.  This batch was too puffed up, that batch did not have quite enough depth of flavor, yet another batch was not quite puffy enough.  Trying to stay on the other side of the fence of thin and crispy cookies, I tried extra cornstarch, a higher amount of butter, and varying sizes in the chopped chocolate.  I even played around with adding chopped peanuts to the mixture, but wasn’t crazy about the results.  This process, of figuring out what works well and what does not, is so reminiscent of preparing an aria or attempting to refine a long ingrained technique that is slightly out of alignment vocally.  Currently, the freezer is full of not quite perfect cookies that we will slowly work our way through - as well as a good number that were gifted to my trusty taste tester friends.  Feedback is always excellent on what works and what does not.

After careful consideration, the game changer was a technique I used in these Midnight Cocoa Cookies, which was to use an extra egg yolk or two to hep create that rich, fatty, chewy consistency that I was looking for.  The fats from the extra egg yolk helped the cookie soften and create a deliciously delicate chew without losing the crisped edges that I love in my chocolate chip cookies.  The dough has a slightly nutty flavor from a bit of peanut butter, but overall the little bursts of sweet peanut butter chips counter and balance the richness of the bittersweet chocolate chips.  Because I love the melty effect of goo that occurs when chocolate is chopped, I chop my bittersweet chocolate chips a bit, but leave the peanut butter chips whole for textural contrast.  To enhance the peanut butter flavor, flaky sea salt is added to the top of each cookie.

A Scoop and Drop cookie that has texture, flavor nuances, and the simplicity of coming together within an hour and a half for the whole batch.  What is NOT to love about that?!?!

When I finally cracked the code for this cookie, there were two little swishy tailed felines silently judging me as I took a bite, closed my eyes, and reveled in the exact texture and flavor I had been looking for. The cookies are so rich, from the butter, slightly fruity bittersweet chocolate, and teeter perfectly on the edge of perfectly cooked through the center without over baked sadness.  I adore the finished product, and there might have been a cat shooed away from sniffing the cooling cookies.  That first bite was one of those fleeting moments of triumph that will circle back again, in its own time - one of those moments we strive to move us from a good day, to an exceptional one.

To me, the flaky sea salt really helps tie together this rich, sweet, and meltingly delicious cookie.

PB and Chocolate Chip  Peanut Butter Cookies

Author:  Iris Anna Gohn

Servings: About 40 Cookies

These cookies come together very quickly - the only thing you need to do to prepare is soften your butter about an hour before you make them.  If you are REALLY ambitious, I recommend taking out the eggs at the same time as room temperature eggs really do make a difference in the height of a cookie after it is baked.

I recently invested in OXO cookie scoops (actually, I got the small, medium, and large) and I LOVE them.  Perfectly portioned cookies equal an even bake for each cookie, and it is incredibly easy and quick to scoop the cookies out.  For this recipe, I used the medium scoop, which will result in a 2 3/4 inch cookie.  I believe it is a single tablespoon amount of dough for each cookie, so the baking time reflects this amount of dough.

I also like to note that I exclusively use Adam’s Peanut Butter for eating/baking in my house.  Since it is a natural peanut butter, the viscosity is a bit looser than other brand name peanut butters that contain other emulsifiers and sugars.  

Since this makes a large amount of cookies, you can scoop and freeze half the cookie dough for up to 3 months.  If you bake from frozen, you would just add a few minutes to the baking time.  I’ve also successfully frozen the already baked cookies and they keep up to one month in the freezer.  Otherwise, store the leftovers in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Ingredients

• 3 Cups All Purpose Flour
• 2 Tsp Baking POWDER
• 1 Tsp Baking SODA
• 1/2 Tsp Sea Salt
• 1 Cup (2 sticks) SALTED Butter, softened *I use Costco brand, but if you have unsalted butter, add an additional 1/4 Tsp Salt to make up the difference)
• 1 Cup Granulated White Sugar
• 3/4 Cup Light Brown Sugar
• 1 1/4Cups Dark Brown Sugar
• 2 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
• 2 Tbsp Peanut Butter (I use Adam’s Peanut Butter, Creamy)
• 2 Eggs + 2 Egg Yolks
• 1/2 Cup (4 oz) Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips
• 1/2 Cup (4 oz) Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, roughly chopped
• Flaky Sea Salt, for sprinkling

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.  Line two baking sheets with Parchment Paper.  Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg yolks, peanut butter, and vanilla.  Set aside.
4. In a stand mixer fixed with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, white sugar, light brown sugar, and dark brown sugar on medium speed.  This should take 3-5 minutes - you want a lot of air to incorporate into the mixture.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a Spatula as needed, and mixture should be fluffy and have turned a light golden brown.
5. Add the egg and vanilla mixture to the stand mixer and cream for an additional minute on medium, until everything is well incorporated.
6. Turn the mixer speed down to low and carefully add half the dry ingredients.  Incorporate until the flour is still streaky, maybe a minute to two minutes, then add the rest of the flour and incorporate until the flour is almost absorbed - about another minute or two.
7. Add in the peanut butter chips and chocolate chips
8. Scoop 1 Tbsp dough balls onto the prepared cookie sheets, 8 to a sheet with room for the cookies to spread.  Sprinkle with the Flake Salt.
9. Bake for 11 minutes, rotating the baking pans halfway through to ensure even browning.  Cool on the hot pans for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.