Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
I had been wanting to bake for months already and just as I slapped my butt and got myself a nice recipe to start baking (for a special reason of course), I could not find my tools/ingredients. The mixing bowl I bought just for baking is nowhere to be found and there is no sugar in the house! I am really surprised that my house has no sugar. LOL. After much digging, I managed to find a bag of orange sugar – those that you used to make tang yuan (Chinese Dumplings), and decided to try using that.
Had not intended to blog about this but changed my mind at the last minute. 😛 Hence there are no photos of the ingredients used, the mixing process and how the batter looks like. Basically, just follow the method in Curtis’s Recipe.
Ingredients I used to make my Curtis Stone inspired Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Coookies:
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup natural chunky peanut butter (about 140 grams)
1/2 cup granulated orange sugar
1/4 cup (62.5 grams) salted butter, at room temperature
3/4 tablespoons honey
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
75.5 grams semisweet chocolate chips
I halved almost everything from Curtis’s Recipe (since I am trying it out for the first time) and substituted some ingredients and yielded 20 different sizes cookies in 4 baking batches due to the small microwave oven at home.
First Batch of 3 cookies – They are big! I have already reduced the cookie instructions from 3 tablespoonsful to 1 tablespoonsful each and they are still very big! I only managed to cook 3 in this first batch as I do not know how much it will expand hence left more space so that they will not stick together .
My 2nd Batch of cookies baking in the oven. I tried to squeeze one more onto the plate and they look a little squeezey here after expanding 😛
This is the 3rd batch waiting to go into oven. I decided to drastically reduce the size of the cookies so that you can just pop it into your mouth instead of several bites. Each cookie is one teaspoonful instead of 1 tablespoonful. You can see that every cookie is full of chocolate chips and peanut butter! Woohoo..
3rd Batch baking in oven
I could not wait till all the batches are done to try the cookies. Once the first batch is cooled, I torn one apart to try. This is side view of my cookie. It is actually more crumbly than crispy, perhaps due to the amount of egg in it and the reduction of sugar. Also, it looks a little more red than brown because of the orange sugar. Most of the cookies you eat would have loads of sugar in it so that you get the very crunchy and crispy feel when you bit into it. I like mine this way though. Although I find that it feels a little dry, it would be a perfect treat to go with a nice cuppa of coffee/tea! 🙂 Maybe I will tweak the sugar and egg proportion a little next time. 😉
Last batch of cookies (bottom left) waiting to go into oven. You can see that the 3rd batch of cookies(bottom right) are significantly smaller than the first 2 batches (top).
My Curtis Stone inspired Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with hand scribbled recipe and their adjusted portion in red. 😛
Recipe referenced from http://curtisstone.com/recipes/desserts/peanut-butter-cookies-with-chocolate-chunks.aspx
I have reproduced it below for easy reference.
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Ingredients (Makes about 20 cookies):
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup natural chunky peanut butter (about 9 ounces / 280 grams)
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated / caster sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick / 125 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 ½ tablespoons honey
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces / 155 grams semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 350°F / 180°C.
2) Line 3 heavy large baking sheets with parchment paper.
3) Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
4) Using an electric mixer, beat the peanut butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, honey, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl until well blended.
5) Stir the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture in 2 additions.
6) Stir in the chopped chocolate
7) Scoop about 3 tablespoonfuls of dough for each cookie onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 2 1/2 inches apart.
8 ) Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the cookies puff and begin to brown on top but are still very soft to the touch.
9) Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 5 minutes.
10) Using a metal spatula, transfer the cookies to a rack and eat warm or cool completely.
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