Hand Coding

Back at my old job, my friend (and coworker at the time) Matt brought in some chocolate chip peanut butter cookies into the office a few months back. They were pretty yummy—the cookies were soft and full of peanut flavor. I recently asked Matt for the recipe and he was gracious enough to mention that I could share it as well:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (198 grams) sugar
• ½ cup (99 grams) sugar (set aside in a small bowl for in which to roll the cookies later)
• 1 cup (198 grams) brown sugar
• 1 cup creamy (or chunky) peanut butter [I used Skippy Natural creamy peanut butter when I made a batch recently and that seemed to work out pretty well. —Ashley]
• 2 sticks (226 grams) of unsalted butter, softened (Or for a vegan version, I’ve had success with Miyoko’s Vegan Butter, which I found at Target.)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs that have come to room temperature (Or for a vegan version, I’ve had success with Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer, which I found at Target.)
• 2 cups (284 grams) flour
• 12–12.5 oz (340–355 g) dark chocolate from 70%+ bars (alternately: one 12 oz / 340 g bag of chocolate chips)
• optional: sea salt to sprinkle on top, to taste
  (I prefer Maldon sea-salt flakes for sprinkling on top, but other types of sea salt can work too.)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375°F (or 190°C)

2. Combine the sugar (just the first cup), brown sugar, butter, peanut butter, baking soda, vanilla extract, and eggs in a large mixing bowl.

3. Add the flour about half a cup at a time. This makes it easier to mix by hand, but it also helps you achieve the right dough consistency. You want the dough to be as moist as possible, while still peeling cleanly off your finger. Much dryer than that and the cookies will be cakey. Not dry enough, and they'll be too doughy.

4. Roughly chop the dark chocolate bars. It’s fine (and even preferable) if not all the chopped pieces are the same size—aim to have most of the pieces around ½ to ¾ inch (1 to 2 cm) on any given side. Then add the chopped chocolate pieces and gently fold them in with a spatula.

5. Using a small spoon, scoop out little clumps of dough and roll them in the small bowl of sugar you set aside. Place the dough balls on a cookie sheet (no need to grease it).

6. Bake each batch for 8–10 minutes. You want to take them out just before they look done and let them continue to bake outside of the oven on the hot cookie sheet for a few minutes.

7. Optional: Immediately after taking the cookie sheets out of the oven, sprinkle the tops of the cookies with sea salt.

These are probably my favorite chocolate chip peanut butter cookies and I’ll definitely be making these again. Om nom nom.

Oh, and on a side note, while I normally go for just-peanuts peanut butter (the kind with “Peanuts, salt” as its only ingredients), I’ve learned that most recipes that call for peanut butter usually do so under the assumption that you’ll use pre-sweetened peanut butter. So, if you’re buying peanut butter that you plan to use in a baked good (such as cookies), I’d recommend buying one that includes sugar among its ingredients. (And though its name may imply otherwise, Skippy’s Natural line does include sugar.)