Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookies - 2 Recipes

If you read my blog on Saturday you will have seen the beautiful retro inspired aprons by Rosie Ann. Writing and looking at that post got me in the baking mood - and was a great excuse to choose one of my many aprons to wear! My first thought was the best combination ever - chocolate and peanut butter.

I have a recipe I usually use to make chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies I got from an American cookbook. It says to use peanut butter chips (which I'd never heard of!) so I substituted them for chocolate chips - and the result is heavenly! I got a craving for them over the weekend so thought I'd treat myself to some and got all ready to bake them - then discovered I didn't have any peanut butter. However, I did have some peanut butter flavouring I bought from Make or Bake's stall at a farmer's market I attended last month so thought I'd try a chocolate chip cookie recipe with this flavouring. Below are both recipes (if you need an excuse to try both!); the pictures are from the recipe with peanut butter flavouring.

Chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter flavouring

Ingredients

75g butter (I use butter substitute)
75g brown sugar
1 egg
A few drops of peanut butter flavouring oil
150g plain flour
Pinch of salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
100g chocolate chips (I prefer dark chocolate)

The peanut butter flavouring I tried in my recipe

1. Heat the oven to 160 C / 350 F. Mix together the butter and sugar until they are creamy.

2. Beat in the egg. Add the peanut butter oil - I used 5 drops which gave a subtle flavour but add more if you like it more peanutty.

3. Mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Add this in 3 stages to the butter mixture stirring in well each time.

4. Stir in the chocolate chips.

5. Put spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. I stretched my mixture to 11 cookies. Leave space in between each cookie for them to spread.

6. Bake in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes until they start going golden brown but are still soft. They will firm up as the cool.

7. When they are a little firmer transfer them from the tray to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Tip - to make them extra chocolatey substitute 40g of the plain flour for cocoa or drinking chocolate!

Chocolate and peanut butter cookies

These are the cookies I usually make when I haven't run out of peanut butter.

Ingredients

1/2 cup of plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
A pinch of salt
1/4 cup of butter (I always use butter substitute rather than the real thing and it always tastes good)
1/2 cup of peanut butter (I prefer chunky)
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 an egg
A little milk (if needed)
1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Heat the oven to 160C/350F.

2. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

3. In another bowl mix the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar. I use an electric whisk or you can do it by  hand.

4.  Add the egg and beat it into the mixture.

5. Pour the flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture and mix until combined. If the mix is too stiff at this point add a little milk. The mixture should be firm but sticky.

6. Stir in the chocolate chips.

7. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper. Drop tablespoons of the mixture onto the tray and flatten it a little. Leave space between each drop of mixture because the cookies will spread as they cook.

8. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes. They should look brown and starting to set. Take them out of the oven while they are still squidgy though as they will firm up as they cool.

9. Let them cool on the tray until they are firm enough to be picked up and then put them on a cooling rack to cool completely (or if you're like me eat a couple while they're still warm and melting!).