These cookies are the perfect marriage of a peanut butter cookie and a chocolate chip cookie. Using extra peanut butter and chopping the chocolate ensures you’ll have layers of chocolate throughout every super peanut-buttery bite!
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Creating the perfect Peanut Butter Chopped Chocolate Cookies
I created these Peanut Butter Chopped Chocolate Cookies with the following must-haves foremost in my mind:
- Peanut butter Over the years, one of the most requested cookies from my friends and family has been peanut butter. It's also the most requested frosting flavor, filling flavor, and cookie or bar add-in. Everyone, from The Boy, to his parents, to my nephews, to my next door neighbors wants peanut butter. And when I add peanut butter, they want more peanut butter. So, the base of this cookie is extra peanut-buttery.
- Chocolate Second only to the peanut butter, is chocolate. For my in-laws, there cannot be enough chocolate. The limit does not exist. When I bring them baked treats, my mother-in-law actually inspects them for chocolate content and makes her choice based on that. As a matter of fact, one of my life goals is to hear my mother-in-law say "that's too much chocolate," and we have yet to reach that goal. I carry on with hope.
What do I need to make these cookies a reality?
- Unsalted butter and salt Whether I am baking or cooking savory food, I always use unsalted butter because it better allows me to control the salt content of my finished product. As for my preferred salt, I only use kosher salt when cooking or baking (preferably Diamond Kosher Salt), and flaky sea salt for finishing. You know, that last minute sprinkle to satisfy my salty palate.
- Creamy peanut butter Although I firmly believe that chunky peanut butter is the superior peanut butter, I just don't feel it belongs in this cookie. For the proper balance of peanut butter and chocolate, let's stick with creamy this time. I also wouldn't use natural peanut butter. Its tendency to separate can sometimes affect a cookie during baking. Go Jif. Or Skippy. But, really Jif.
- Sugar I use an equal amount of brown sugar and granulated sugar in these cookies. The brown sugar (dark or light) gives us a chewy center, and the granulated sugar helps give us that crispy edge. perfection.
- All-purpose flour Cake flour or bread flour need not apply. All-purpose flour gives the perfect structure to the cookie. No need to complicate it.
- Peanut butter powder This is an optional ingredient, but it packs a peanut butter punch, and shuts up those "needs more peanut butter" whiners. This used to only be available on the Interweb, but I can find it in the natural section of my Mega Market now.
- Semi-sweet chocolate Between the sugars and the peanut butter, these cookies run a bit sweet, so I don't feel this is the place for milk chocolate. You can get bars of semi-sweet chocolate in both the candy aisle and the baking aisle, and they're often on sale, so grab a bunch! Remember, you can never have enough chocolate.
How do I make these cookies?
These cookies are really easy to bring together and require no chilling! Woo hoo!! You can go straight from mixing to eating cookies in less than 30 minutes and no one is mad about that!
- Cream butter and sugar Using either a stand mixer or a hand mixer, you want to cream the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy.
- Add peanut butter Just beat it.
- Mix in dry ingredients I like to sift my dry ingredients together, but some people can't be bothered, and I get that. But at the very least, whisk them together, then add, one spoonful at a time, to the butter mixture.
- Fold in chocolate Using some sort of flat tool, a big spoon, spatula, or rice paddle (my Korean contribution, and superior mixing tool), fold the chocolate in. Using the mixer at this point will break up the chocolate too much and risk over-mixing the dough.
- Scoop and bake Using a small scoop (about 1 ½ tbsp), place cookie dough balls on a parchment paper lined large sheet pan. Giving each cookie some space, bake these at 375° F for 10 minutes. They should be fairly puffy and just starting to set at this point.
- Pan-banging Borrowing a bit of the method pioneered by Sarah Kieffer for her Chocolate Chip Cookies, we're going to pull the pan of cookies out of the oven at this point and give it a couple of sharp raps on the countertop. This will deflate the puffiness, spread the cookies out, and settle the chocolate into luscious pools.
- Bake a bit more Just 2 or 3 minutes, to get brown bottoms and crispy edges.
- Eat! If I have to explain this, there are issues.
Aren't getting enough Peanut Butter in your diet? Try my other PB recipes!
Happy Baking and may all your peanut butter and chocolate dreams come true!
📖 Recipe
Peanut Butter Chopped Chocolate Cookies
These cookies are the perfect marriage of a peanut butter cookie and a chocolate chip cookie. Using extra peanut butter and chopping the chocolate ensures you’ll have layers of chocolate throughout every super peanut-buttery bite!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (227 g) unsalted butter softened
- 1 ½ cups (380 g) creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup (220 g) brown sugar
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
- 2 ¼ cups (270 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoon peanut butter powder optional
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fine grain kosher salt
- 2 cups (350 g) chopped semi-sweet chocolate
- 2 oz (57 g) chopped semi-sweet chocolate optional, for adding to the tops of cookies before baking
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375° and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer (or a large bowl with a hand mixer) beat together butter, vanilla, and both sugars until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed. This should take about 2-4 minutes. Add in peanut butter and thoroughly combine. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula between each egg.
- Add the flour mixture one large spoonful at a time and mix until just combined. A stray bit of flour is fine, because it will combine when mixing in the chopped chocolate.
- Using a stiff wooden spoon, rubber spatula, or a rice paddle (my personal favorite mixing tool), gently fold in your chopped chocolate. Remember to add all the chocolate, even the shards and the chocolate dust you created when chopping. It all adds to the amazing flavor of these cookies.
- There is no need to chill this dough. We are ready to scoop! Using a small scoop, portion balls of cookie dough onto your parchment paper lined large sheet pan. I place 11 cookie scoops per large baking sheet; four on each side and three in the middle. I find this gives me room for general cookie spread, and extra room for a light pan banging. Optional, but if you would like nice melty pools of chocolate on top of your cookies, gently press two or three pieces of chopped chocolate on top of each cookie ball, being careful not to flatten the dough balls too much.
- Bake cookies for 10 minutes, or until the they are just beginning to set. The cookies should be fairly puffy at this point. Remove pan from oven and, holding pan with pot holders on both sides, give bottom of the pan 3 or 4 firm taps on the counter. The once puffy cookies should deflate and spread out from the banging. Place back in the oven for another 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown overall, with a crispy looking edge. Allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer to a cooling rack. Keep making cookies!
- Allow to cool for a respectable amount of time. Five minutes sounds good! Eat one for quality control. After the cookies are fully cooled, store in an airtight container. To reheat, (recommended for maximum wow) microwave for 8-10 seconds, or if eating quite a few, refresh in a 350°F oven for 3-5 minutes.
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Notes
Dough balls can be frozen before baking. Just put scoops of cookie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet and place in freezer. When they are frozen, pop the dough balls in a zip lock bag for cookie craving moments. When that crave hits, bake as directed above, adding 2-5 minutes to the time stated.
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