This is my default cookie recipe. It’s largely unchanged from the source except I took some tips from Kenji’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, in which he goes completely overboard trying to discover the perfect recipe, and incorporated these improvements:
- Browned butter to amp up the toffee flavour effect
- As little mixing as possible to preserve craggy texture
- At least an overnight rest before baking for enzymatic activity to improve flavour depth
I also switched the kosher salt to a smaller volume (equal weight) of regular table salt because there’s no special reason to use the kosher salt and I don’t usually have it on hand.
I specifically use dark roast peanut butter whenever possible, just for that extra bit of savouriness. And sometimes if I’m feeling extra, I’ll add some Skor bits, but I’ve only ever eyeballed the amount.
There was also a time where I mis-measured the peanut butter and I actually liked the result a lot more, but I don’t remember exactly what I did. It’s possible I added more; there’s a couple of comments on the source recipe page saying that using ¾ cup peanut butter (instead of ½ cup as stated) makes for a good result. I’ll need to give that a try intentionally and confirm.
Details
- Yield: 24 30g cookies (700 g total)
- Total time: 3 hours
- Active: 20 minutes
- Passive: 2 hours
- Cooking: 15 - 18 minutes per tray (30 - 35 minutes total)
Equipment
- Stovetop
- Oven
- Mixing bowl
- Stand mixer
- Baking sheets
- Parchment paper
- Wire rack
Ingredients
- 190 g (1-½ cups) all-purpose flour
- 4 g (¾ tsp) baking soda
- 2 g (½ tsp) baking powder
- ¼ tsp table salt
- 115 g (½ cup) unsalted butter
- 125 g (½ cup) creamy peanut butter (ideally a dark roast)
- 100 g (½ cup) light brown sugar, packed
- 100 g (½ cup) granulated white sugar
- 50 g whole egg (1 large)
- 3.5 g (¼ tsp) vanilla extract
- 130 g (¾ cup) bittersweet chocolate chips (see note)
Method
A. Brown the butter
- In a saucepan on the stove, cook the butter over medium heat until it starts to foam up and the colour begins to darken
- Continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the foam is tan in colour and the butter smells nutty
- Take the saucepan off the heat and add an ice cube, stirring quickly; the mixture will foam up
- Let butter cool to room temperature
B. Mix the dough
- In a bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda
- In the stand mixer bowl, beat eggs and sugars on medium speed until pale and fluffy
- Mix in cooled brown butter, peanut butter, and vanilla extract
- Add dry ingredients from Step B1 and mix until partially combined; the dough should still have visible pockets of flour
- Stir in chocolate chips and mix dough until the flour has just barely been incorporated
- Refrigerate dough in a sealed container, at least 2 hours (overnight is better)
C. Bake the cookies
- Preheat oven to 177°C (350°F) and line baking sheets with parchment paper
- Form balls of dough about 30g (2 Tbsp) each and arrange them on cookie sheets about 5 cm apart, then flatten each slightly with a fork
- Bake until just brown on the edges, about 15 minutes
- Let cookies cool 5 minutes, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely
Notes
Mix now, bake later
If you don’t want to bake all the cookies at once, you can freeze the portioned-out dough balls you make in Step C2. Just crowd the flattened dough balls on the pan and put the entire pan in the freezer for the dough to freeze solid, then transfer the frozen dough balls to a sealed container to keep frozen. When you want fresh cookies, bake the dough from frozen for about 18 minutes.
Play with the chocolate
Bittersweet chocolate is necessary here to avoid a cloying result, so don’t mess with it. Instead, play with the shape of the chocolate:
- For uniformly distributed little chocolate pockets, use chocolate chips
- For larger chocolate sections, use chocolate chunks
- For a layered and flaxy texture, use chocolate discs
- For all sorts of different chocolate bits, hand-chop a chocolate bar; this gets you chunks for chocolate pockets as well as splinters and bits that mix into the rest of the cookie for a distributed chocolate flavour
Sources
Vasios Mullins, Carrie. “Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.” Serious Eats, 19 Feb. 2014, www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/02/chewy-peanut-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies.html.