Longest cookie name ever. However, you have to trust me: these cookies are deserving of such a laden moniker.
First, a bit of a meandering introduction to my preoccupation with creating the perfect peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies. I grew up in Fairfield, Iowa until I was fifteen, and then my family moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and has lived there ever since. Large pieces of me still are connected to my Iowan roots, including the sense-memory of the most amazing, incredible, perfect peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies made by Cookies From the Heart in Fairfield – cookies to which I have never tasted the equal (and which apparently doesn’t have any sort of web presence). All my readers from Fairfield, you know what I’m talking about – and you should all run, not walk, to Everybody’s and get yourself one of those cookies right now just because you can.
Since I live in New York, not Fairfield, and thus don’t have regular access to those cookies, I have been working on figuring out how to make my own. I knew the key was bringing the full richness out of the peanut butter without overpowering the chocolate chips, but every recipe I tried fell short. So I made up my own recipe, tried it out, and lo and behold FINALLY I’ve found it and it was so obvious it is almost ridiculous. Oh brown butter: you come through every time.
Seriously: I ramped up every rich flavor-filled ingredient, added the brown butter, and added only enough flour as was needed to achieve the cookie consistency. The result is a magnificent creation. I did not eat dinner the night I made these. I only ate cookies.
Brown Butter Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Very adapted from All Recipes
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter (I used mostly Jif with a little natural peanut butter added in. If you prefer a nuttier taste, use the natural stuff; if you like it to be really smooth, use the stuff that’s bad for you. I think it’s clear which choice I made.)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup (I know, it’s bad for you, etc etc etc – I don’t care. It adds a smoothness the cookies really need, so just grit your teeth if you must and add it in.)
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 6 ounces Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chunks (60% cacao), or use the chocolate of your choice cut into chunks
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Brown the butter over medium heat in a saucepan (see Brown Butter instructions) and let congeal in the refrigerator until solid.
To make the brown butter mixable, either leave it out until it has reached room temperature or microwave at low power until it is soft enough to blend but not melted.
With an electric mixer, cream the brown butter, peanut butter and sugars together until smooth and fluffy (about one minute). Add eggs, vanilla and corn syrup and mix on medium speed until combined. Stir flour, baking soda, and salt together, then add the dry mixture on low speed, beating until just combined. Fold in chocolate chunks.
Line your baking sheets with parchment paper (optional, but helps to avoid sticking). Drop large tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto the baking sheet, leaving at least half an inch between each cookie. Bake for 13-15 minutes, until the cookie is set and does not indent when you touch it lightly. My oven bakes on the slow side, and I took these out at exactly 15 minutes, so if you know your oven let that be your guide.
Let the cookies set on the baking sheets for a minute or two before transferring them to wire racks to cool.
Now eat, possibly with milk to dunk them in, and give up any hope of wanting anything else to eat for quite a while. It’s not the worst thing in the world :)
Last night I had the immense pleasure of chowing down on these cookies. The only word to describe my experience: HEAVENLY. I ate the last of the cookies for breakfast this morning (I usually eat a wholesome, healthy diet but the thought of passing up the smokey peanut butter taste was too much to bear).
Pingback: Rosemary and Thyme, Garlic and Lemon | Brown Butter & Bourbon
Pingback: Back to Cookie Basics | Brown Butter & Bourbon
I am really enjoying the theme/design of your website. Do you
ever run into any browser compatibility problems? A handful of my blog audience have
complained about my site not working correctly in Explorer but looks
great in Chrome. Do you have any tips to help fix this issue?
Webmaster do you want unlimited content for your blog? Type in google:
Stottai’s Rewriter
Hi admin, i see your site needs fresh content.
Daily updates will rank your website in google higher, content is king nowadays.
If you are to lazy to write unique posts everyday you should search in google for:
Ightsero’s Essential Tool
Why users still use to read news papers when in this technological globe everything is existing on web?
needless to say such as your web site but you need to check the
spelling on several of the posts. Many turn out to be rife with spelling issues and
that i in locating it very bothersome to inform the truth
on the flip side I am going to certainly come again again.
Thank you! These are about as close as you can get. I’ve been using your recipe every holiday season for the last few years.
I have noticed you don’t monetize brownbutterandbourbon.com,
don’t waste your traffic, you can earn extra bucks every month with new monetization method.
This is the best adsense alternative for any type of website (they approve
all sites), for more details simply search in gooogle: murgrabia’s tools