Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

As soon as I tasted these cookies I was pretty sure I had already tried a very similar recipe. Closer inspection revealed that my taste bud memory was accurate.

These are very good peanut cookies. That said I have a few other thoughts about them. I don’t think the chocolate chips added a lot. Yes, you know they’re there but these cookies are all about the peanut butter. The roll in the sugar is sort of pretty and adds a bit of crunch but omitting the milk yields a slightly firmer cookie and a bit more crunch without sacrificing too much to texture.

I would make these again if asked, but left to my own devices I would either make the One Bowl Criss Cross Peanut Butter cookies from Cookie Madness, or my old standby peanut butter cookie recipe that came with my Kitchen Aid mixer years ago.

Today’s recipe came from Smitten Kitchen. Compare them to this recipe from Cookie Madness and you’ll see the similarities.

At stack of cookies

Send off Sweets

Chocolate Caramel Bars

We sent these bars off with our son yesterday, had enough to pack some up for his sister, and kept just a few to have here at home. These are of course another kid favorite. With a little salt from the crackers and a lot of sweet from the caramel center and chocolate tops, they have a lot to offer kids of any age.

These are known by many names. We call them Chocolate Caramel Bars, but some people call them Twix Bars. I’m sure they go by other names as well. We prefer them chilled.

This is one of those recipes that went around like wildfire during the early 90′s, so I have no idea who gets the credit for it. Enjoy!

Chocolate Caramel Bars

1 box rectangular crackers (such as Keebler Club crackers)

1/2 c. butter

1/3 c. milk

1/2 c. sugar

3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1 c. graham cracker crumbs

2/3 c. creamy peanut butter

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Line a 9″x13″ pan with rectangular crackers edge to edge. Set aside

In a medium saucepan combine butter, milk, white sugar, brown sugar and graham crackers. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, and boil for 5 minutes. Pour this mixture over the crackers in the pan. Place another layer of crackers edge to edge over the caramel layer.

In a double boiler melt together the peanut butter and the chocolate chips.  Spread this mixture over the top layer of crackers. Chill until firm and then cut into bars.

Criss Cross Peanut Butter Cookies

Anna's Best Ever Peanut Butter Cookies

When I saw Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips on sale in November I picked up a couple of bags. I knew that at some point I would make these cookies before my son goes back to college. Today was the day. We had a favorite peanut butter cookie recipe before discovering these at Cookie Madness, but we quickly decided that these are even better. If you make them, wait until they’re completely cool before sampling. We think this is the rare cookie that isn’t best warm from the oven.

The baking spree will slow down in a major way next week when we no longer have our son around to help make the baked goods disappear. In the meantime we’ll be enjoying his last few days at home.

Our son criss crossing the cookies.

For the recipe click here. If you love peanut butter cookies be sure to give these a try. They really do take peanut butter cookies up a notch.

Six cookies

Six Cookies

Yesterday’s cookie was good and liked by those who ate them including me, but I felt they were a little sweet. Anna from Cookie Madness suggested knocking back the sugar a little which I thought was a great idea. This morning I made one quarter of a batch which yielded six cookies. Yesterday I added a little flour to make them easier to roll in a cinnamon sugar mixture but this morning I decided to skip the flour and the roll in the cinnamon sugar.

You might wonder what a person does with the rest of an egg? Truth be told I made these before I had breakfast this morning, and even before I made a cup of tea! Once I had the cookies in the oven I scrambled up the rest of that egg and ate it for breakfast. The other thing you might wonder is how do you measure 1/4 of an egg? First break the yolk and stir the egg. I have a teeny measuring cup that has measurements in millilters. My egg was about 50 millilters, so I used approximately 12.5 ml. which is roughly equal to a scant tablespoon or 2 and 3/4 teapoons. This isn’t science, just guesstimation.

How do they taste? Less sugary! I prefer these over the cookies I made yesterday. It may have been enough to skip the roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture, but the addition of the salt and removing some of the sugar from the cookie itself made these into cookies which don’t leave me reaching for a cup of tea to wash them down.

Peanut Butter Star Kisses – Take Two

1/4 c. sugar minus 1 1/2 teaspoons

1/8 t. salt

1/4 c. peanut butter

1/4 t. vanilla

1/4 egg (break up the yolk and stir the egg prior to measuring)

six chocolate stars or kisses

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with foil. Place sugar, salt, peanut butter, egg and vanilla in a bowl and stir the mixture together until well blended. Divide dough into six portions and roll into balls. Place the balls on the foil lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and lightly press one chocolate candy on each cookie.  Let the cookies sit on the baking for three more minutes, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Peanut Butter Star Cookies

Happy New Year!

Peanut Butter Star Cookies

The start to the New Year has been calm and lovely. The sun is shining and the temperature was above zero when I got out of bed this morning. The morning was spent reviewing all kinds of recipes and remembering recipes I’ve made in the past. I thought I would make something to use up the huge stash of walnuts I have but that didn’t happen and just when I declared this a non baking day I decided at the last minute to mix up these cookies.

These are ridiculously easy to mix up. I mixed ours up with a spoon. They could be gluten free but I really wanted to give them a roll in cinnamon and sugar and my dough was a bit sticky so I added a tablespoon of flour. You could easily make them the way Anna at Cookie Madness did and drop them from a spoon.

The recipe made 28 cookies. I had cookie eaters standing at the counter waiting for the ok to dig in. I’m hoping there are some left once the chocolate stars set so I can try them warm and fully set. The cookies are on the sweet side so have your favorite beverage ready to accompany them. At our house the sweetness was welcomed by the coffee drinkers, milk drinkers and tea drinkers alike.

For the recipe visit Cookie Madness