The Beginning:
One sultry summer morning, the granddaughters came over for a visit. As soon as they walked into the house, the youngest, who is 3 years old, said, “Gigi! What are we baking today?”. We entered the kitchen and began to discuss our options. The little one went to the pantry and came back with a bag of chocolate chips, assuming we were going to make chocolate chip cookies…again. Her older sister, who helps me make our famous chocolate mint cookies during the holidays, suggested using peanut butter chips. My addition to the conversation was to use the chocolate cookie dough base recipe then add the peanut butter chips to it. Great! We finally have a working plan. Let’s halve the recipe for a trial version. Today, we are making the whole recipe because of our initial success! It’s a keeper!
Dry Ingredients:
Fluff, scoop and level the flour into a small bowl along with the baking soda. Whisk them together and set it aside.
Microwave:
Break apart the chocolate bars along the indentations and place in a large glass bowl.
Add brown sugar and butter to the bowl and microwave for one minute. Stir. Continue to microwave in 15 second intervals, stirring after each one, until chocolate is melted and blends well with butter and brown sugar. Allow mixture to cool for at least 15 minutes while stirring occasionally.
Whisk in room temperature eggs one at a time until well blended.
Mix Ins:
Using a whisk or a wooden spoon, blend in the flour mixture until no flour is visible.
Stir in the peanut butter chips until evenly distributed.
Chill Time:
Place bowl in the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour.
Begin preheating your oven to 350 degrees about 15 minutes prior to taking dough out of the refrigerator.
Scoop and Bake:
Using a medium-sized cookie scoop, place dough 2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined rimmed baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes. Place pan on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes before removing them to another cooling rack. If you have another pan ready to go into the oven, just put it in at this time. Do not put cookie dough on a warm sheet. Allow it to cool to touch before reusing the pan. This could cause the dough to spread out prematurely.
Storage:
Once cooled, store in a covered container at room temperature.
Can you freeze them?
I have frozen the dough on a small cooking sheet, then placed in freezer bags for baking when the urge hits! YUM!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 2-1/2 c all-purpose flour
- 1 t baking soda
- 12 T butter-(1-1/2 sticks)
- 1-1/2 c dark brown sugar
- 12 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate bar-(3-4oz bars) break into small pieces using the grooved sections in bars
- 2 large eggs- room temperature
- 10 oz Reese's Peanut Butter Chips (1 bag)
Instructions
Dry Ingredients:
- Whisk flour and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside.
Microwave:
- In a large glass bowl, melt butter, brown sugar and chocolate pieces in the microwave. Stir after 1 minute. Continue to cook at 15 second intervals until chocolate is melted and blends easiliy into the butter and brown sugar using a whisk.
- Allow it to cool for at least 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Whisk in one egg at a time until well blended before adding the second egg.
Mix Ins:
- Using a hand mixer on LOW speed, or a wooden spoon, blend in the flour mixture just until combined.
- Stir in peanut butter chips until evenly distributed.
- Refrigerate dough for about an hour.
Scoop and Bake:
- Using a medium cookie scoop(1-1/2 T), drop dough onto a parchment paper-lined rimmed baking sheet about 2" apart.
- Bake about 10-12 minutes.
- After resting on the pan for a couple of minutes, move to a cooling rack.
- * Allow pan to cool completely before reusing.
