Peanut Butter Surprises

The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is a total no brainer for me. I found these online at Martha Stewart's site A smooth peanut butter sealed inside a chocolate-chocolate-chip dough was just too much to pass up.


Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar (divided 1, 1/4)
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. (this didn't make sense to me - I'll explain later) Line two baking sheets with Silpats (French non stick baking mats). I only have one so I used parchment paper. It works just fine. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda and set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment (or hand mixer) beat butter, vegetable shortening, granulated sugar and 1 cup brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy - about 2 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until fluffy, combined between additions. Add vanilla; beat to combine. Gradually add dry ingredients, mix on low speed until fully combined. Add chocolate chips, mix on low just until combined. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; chill until firm, about an hour.
Note: this is where #1 didn't make sense - turning the oven to 350 degrees before putting the mix into the fridge for an hour - I'm sure that wasn't intended.

3. In a small bowl using a rubber spatula, stir together peanut butter and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar.

4. Drop 1 tablespoon of dough at a time onto baking sheets, spacing cookies about 2 inches apart. (seriously make sure you space them properly). Make a thumbprint in the center of each cookie. Fill thumbprint with 2 tsp peanut butter mixture. Top with a second tablespoon of flattened dough. Carefully mold dough to cover the surprise.





5. Bake until firm, about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through. (because the cookies turned out so large, the baking process took more than 12 minutes - more like 18 minutes) Transfer baking sheets to wire racks to cool for 5 minutes. Remove cookies from baking sheets and let cool completely on wire racks.



What I learned:

After reading some of the comments on the Martha Stewart site, I have to agree with other commenters. The flavour - deeeeelicious!!! They're tedious to make and sticky to work with. Once the batter comes out of the fridge and the butter warms up - if you don't keep water on your hands you're going to look like mud pie.

When it says leave 2 inches space - do it - these spread and for me they became monster cookies. That didn't at all take away from the taste but I was expecting a small cookie and and ended up with a frisbee wannabe.

I found putting 2 teaspoons of peanut butter mix on the cookie was making it even messier to work with so I reverted to 1 tsp which doesn't give you enough of a "surprise" in the centre.

I would make them again but next time, I'll leave the batter in the fridge overnight before I work with it and definitely use 2 tsp of peanut butter to get the flavour coming through.



Pssst.....November is Peanut Butter Lover's Month (Nick, is that true or did you make it up) and our friend Nick at The Peanut Butter Boy is asking for your favourite peanut butter recipes. Since I'm such a peanut butter junkie and they're all my favourites, I'll add this one to the mix. I know Psychgrad just made a pretty impressive peanut butter dessert recently and will blog about it soon so stay tuned for that one too.