Ultimate Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a confession to make.  I'm a hoarder.  No, not one of those crazy hoarders that you see on the show actual TV show Hoarders (no offence to anyone reading this who is!).  I'm a hoarder of baking stuff.  Mainly things like chocolate chips, M&M's, Jello, Oreos, marshmallows, etc. Things that I see on my travels that I can't get in the UK, so when I see them I kind of go into this panic buying mode as if I will never ever see them again.  So then I buy them.  And then they sit there.  On my baking shelf waiting to be used.  Sometimes for months and months.  

During a recent trip to the US a few weeks ago I found some super cute little mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - prefect for baking.  I had to have them!  Chocolate, peanut butter AND mini!  What's not to love?  

When I got back home from my trip, I started unpacking my new purchases. I lined them up alongside the stuff I already had and started thinking about potential recipes.  I noticed a theme - mini Reese's peanut butter cups, mini Reese's pieces, peanut butter and chocolate chips, and a GIANT jar of peanut butter.  Cue light bulb moment!  I had been wanting to make some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies for ages, but had never got around to it - until now.

I call these the Ultimate Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookie.  They're amazing.  I love them.  And I think you'll love them too!  

UK residents!!! I realise that this recipe's main ingredients are sourced from the US, but you can also get them here now in the UK at your local supermarket.  They won't be the mini versions of the peanut butter cups and pieces, but YOU CAN BUY the regular and small sized versions of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and the regular sized Reese's Pieces at Sainsbury's, Tesco and Asda.  It's fine to use regular sized peanut butter cups, just cut them into smaller chunks (approx 9 pieces).  If you'd prefer to use the mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that I used you can buy them here and you can also buy Reese's peanut butter chips similar to the ones I used here.

Made With Pink's Ultimate Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 20 large cookies


Ingredients:  

2 1/2 Cups (310g) Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

3/4 Cup (210g) Smooth Peanut Butter (not natural)
1/2 Cup (115g) Butter, softened
1 1/4 Cups (250g) Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup (55g) Castor Sugar
2 Eggs
2 Tbsp Milk
2 Tbsp Corn Syrup or Golden Syrup
2 tsp Vanilla
1 Cup Peanut Butter and/or Chocolate Chips
1/2 Cup Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
1/2 Cup Mini Reese's Pieces


Instructions:  


1.  Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC).  In a small bow combine the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. 


2.  In a large bowl combine the peanut butter, butter, brown sugar and white sugar together.  Cream together with an electric mixer until smooth.  Beat in the eggs one by one.  Add in the milk, syrup and vanilla.  Stir the flour mixture from step 1 into the peanut butter mixture.  Fold in the peanut butter and chocolate chips, Reese's Pieces and peanut butter cups.  Drop the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet by 1/4 cup fulls and flatten slightly.  

3.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until edges are just slightly golden.  Leave the cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes to firm up before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

I love peanut butter.  I really do.  In fact most North Americans love it, but the British - well let's just say they've got mixed feelings about it.  I'll eat anything with peanut butter in it. Granola bars, sandwiches, ice cream, cookies, soups, noodles, chicken satay, anything - I love it all.  For me, peanut butter and chocolate is the ultimate combination, but this isn't the case for a lot of my friends in the UK.  Upon moving here I discovered that peanut butter is more commonly associated with savoury dishes such as Pad Thai, and not with sweet things like it is in North America.  About a year ago I remember trying to convince a friend to try one of my peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes, but they wouldn't even try one because they found the flavour combination far to strange and repulsive.  Well - if anyone reading this finds peanut butter and chocolate a repulsive combination (and if you weren't already turned off by my previous post) I'm warning you - STOP reading this right now. There. I've warned you.

To show you how crazy Americans are about peanut butter, I took the first picture below at a Target store in Texas.  The second picture is of the peanut butter selection in a UK Tesco store. In America it's all about variety.  I've found that American companies don't usually remove items from their product lines, instead they'll just add to them.  In the UK they're more likely to remove a product and replace it with another one.  Unless that product is tea. If it's tea, they'll just go ahead and add another 10 flavours to the product line. 

American peanut butter selection: Smooth, crunchy, extra crunchy, honey roasted, reduced fat, natural, organic, omega 3, peanut butter & jam swirl, peanut butter & white chocolate, peanut butter & dark chocolate and peanut butter & banana.

  

UK peanut butter selection:  Smooth & crunchy.  If your lucky you'll find natural, and maybe even organic. The store pictured above is a big one, so it stocks all varieties.  Chocolate and hazelnut spreads are more popular here.

When I lived in Canada Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were my favourite chocolate bar (even though they're not really a chocolate bar at all).  Every time I passed the candy section of a store here in the UK I'd be on the look out for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  My search went on for over a year without any luck, so I just figured they weren't available.  I was pleased to discover that I was wrong, and that they did actually exist.  I was just looking in the wrong place.  Well - actually I think I was looking in the right place, but some strange person in charge of super market planning decided to put them in the wrong place!  For some reason Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are kept in the cookie (biscuit) aisle at the grocery store.  Why?  I have no idea! These are not cookies.  I mean really? Who thinks they're cookies?  Thankfully, my mind is now at ease knowing that I am able to indulge in a peanut butter cup whenever I want, and I no longer have to wait until I go back home to stock up on them.  I've even found a local shop that stocks Reese's Pieces.  I doubt I'll ever find one of my favourite North American cereals here in the UK though - Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cereal.  Yes, that's right!  North Americans put their candy bars in cereal form.  There's no better way to start the day!  Good thing I still have a box of Reese's cereal from my last trip to the US.  And look at the top right corner, the box even says it's good for you!  "Nutritional Highlights" - it's got vitamins and everything!  Ha!  Yeah right...

 

I was so ecstatic about my recent peanut butter cup discovery that they inspired my next cupcake.  A Reese's Peanut Butter Cup cupcake!  A rich chocolate cupcake with fluffy whipped peanut butter frosting and a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup tucked inside.  Delicious!  I had originally intended on making these cupcakes for July's Iron Cupcake London competition, but it was cancelled.  Luckily one of my fellow Iron Cupcake bakers decided that it would be nice to have a cupcake get together anyway.  Due to some last minute cancellations it was a small gathering, but very enjoyable none the less.  Kelly made some delicious coconut cupcakes that were dipped in pink and milk chocolate, Gem made some really good snickers cupcakes topped with rocky road, and Tamara made some yummy lemon and lime cupcakes.   I had a really nice time chatting about cupcakes with the girls, and at the end of the night we all swapped cupcakes.  We each went home with a nice selection, and since I was on the verge of a cupcake overdose I brought them all into work with me the next day where they were quickly gobbled up with rave reviews.   

Below are my Reese's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup cupcakes.  I topped them off with peanut butter frosting and a chocolate peanut butter crunch. These are probably one of my favourite cupcakes, and they're so easy to make.  

 

 Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

1 1/8 cups (255g) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (55g) Cocoa
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (100g) granulated white sugar
1/2 cup (125ml) milk, plus2 tbs milk
1/4 cup warm water
2 tbs brewed coffee
1/2 cup (125ml) melted butter
12 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (not the mini ones)

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC)
2.  Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper liners, and place a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup in the bottom of each paper liner.
3. In one bowl sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, brown sugar, and white sugar. Then whisk in the milk, coffee, and melted butter.
5. Add in the dry ingredients until well mixed.
6.Divide the batter evenly among 12 cupcake molds. Fill about three-quarters full.
7. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the middle of the cupcakes comes out clean.

For the frosting simply whip in some smooth (not natural) peanut butter into your regular buttercream icing and pipe on top of your cooled cupcakes.  The result is a moist and delicious chocolate cupcake with a peanut butter surprise at the bottom and a nice creamy peanut butter frosting on top.

These Might Gross You Out...

Chances are if your from North America your going to love these, but if your from the UK I'm going to have to work hard at convincing you to give these cookies a try.  A few weeks ago I came across a recipe on another blog for something called a "compost cookie", which basically consisted of anything you'd like to get rid of in your pantry.  The particular cookie I saw had chocolate chips, peanuts, shredded coconut, some M&M's and potato chips.  Yes, you read that correctly.  Potato chips.  In a cookie!  At first I thought eew, that's gross.  But then after I got thinking about it and imagining what they would taste like, I figured potato chips in a cookie might actually be kinda good.  After all, one of my favourite chocolate bars when I lived in Canada had pretzels in it.  The Max 5 bar (called Take 5 in the US) incorporates pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter and chocolate all in one amazingly delicious little bar.  It's the perfect combination of crunchy, salty and sweet. I decided if a cookie can have potato chips in it, then why can't a cookie have pretzels in it?  Ah ha!  I know, I'll make a cookie based on the Max 5 bar!  A day or so after I decided that the Max 5 cookie would be my next cookie conquest, I discovered that someone had already beat me to it!  My life had just got a whole lot easier - I didn't have to bother coming up with the recipe!  And even more importantly, all of the ingredients are readily available in the UK. 

You'll need peanut butter, some Rolo chocolates, chocolate chips, peanut butter and pretzels.  In the UK the pretzel selection is pretty slim.  In fact, I was only able to find one brand of pretzels and they're a little smaller than the ones back home (but that won't make a difference in this recipe). The original recipe called for natural chunky peanut butter, but I'm not really a fan of nuts in my cookies (or brownies), so I used a 50/50 split of smooth natural peanut butter and American Skippy smooth creamy peanut butter (available only at Cost-Co in the UK).  The recipe called for Rolo chocolates, but I also tried a few cookies with some of the new Cadbury Caramel Nibbles. And since I really love chocolate I decided to throw a hand full of chocolate chips into the mix as well.  The lack of chocolate chips in the UK was one of the things that really struck me when I first moved here.  They do have chocolate chips, but only 3 types: milk, regular (semi-sweet) and white - and they come in really small packages.  Mint chocolate, white & dark swirls, peanut butter chip, toffee, micro mini M&M's, etc don't exist here, so whenever I go back to North America I always stock up. 

Clockwise left to right: American "family size" (2kg / 72oz) bag of chocolate chips,  Canadian  "family size" (1kg / 35oz) bag of chocolate chips, American regular size (340g / 12oz) bag of chocolate chips (same size in Canada), standard UK size (100g / 3.5oz) bag of chocolate chips.

Making these cookies requires the dough to be made ahead of time and refrigerated over night so all of the flavours can blend and develop.  When it come time to actually making the cookies you'll need to sandwich 2 slightly flattened rolo chocolates in between 2 discs of the cookie dough and really smoosh them together just prior to baking.

Below is the recipe, which I adapted slightly from the original found here.

Take 5 Cookies

1 1/4 cups (156g) all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (115g) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (130g) natural peanut butter

1/2 cup (130g) creamy regular peanut butter
1/2 cup (113g) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (150g) lightly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pretzel squares or twists, lightly crushed
1/4 cup chocolate chips (approx 1 handful)
30 Rolo candies, unwrapped (each UK Rolo pack has 10 pieces)

1) In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2) In a large bowl (or stand mixer), beat the softened butter for a few minutes until light and creamy. Scrape down bowl with spatula, add peanut butter and continue to beat with butter until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl, add sugars and continue beating until fully combined. Scrape down bowl, add the egg, milk and vanilla extract. Mix well.

3) Add half the flour mixture, stir in slowly just until combined, then add the remaining flour mixture. Stir just until there are no white pockets making sure to scrape down bowl in between additions.

4) Fold in pretzel pieces and chocolate chips by hand. Wrap dough in parchment or plastic wrap and refrigerate for 24 hours. This allows the a rich caramel flavor to develop as the ingredients sit.

5) When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350˚F (175˚C). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

6) Take two Rolos and flatten slightly. Take a tablespoon or two of dough and mold it around the Rolo to form a disk shaped cookie (about 2-inches wide). Place on sheet pan and repeat with remaining dough. Bake for exactly 10 minutes. Cookies may look a bit underdone, however they will come out chewy and delicious when cooled. Cool cookies on pan for one minute then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Notes:  The above recipe says you should get 24 cookies, but I only got 14.  My peanut butter and butter mixture never got light and fluffy, it was actually pretty runny due to all of the oil that was in the natural peanut butter.  The mixture didn't get light and fluffy for me until I added the egg and vanilla.  After you chill the dough it can become quite crumbly and hard to work with, so it's best to take approx 2 tbsps of dough and flatten it into a disc in the palm of your hand, and then place it on your baking sheet before placing the 2 rolo's and another flattened disc of dough on top.  I baked my cookies for 10 mins, but took them out of the oven after 6 mins and flattened them slightly with the back of a spoon.  These cookies will not flatten out much by themselves.  Finally, allow the cookies to cool completely before eating to allow the pretzels to crisp up again.

Enjoy!