Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies

I love peanut butter. I mean, I REALLY love peanut butter. It is without a doubt my favorite food. Any time I see something made with peanut butter, I have to try it. And even as a full grown adult, I still love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

In order to be a true peanut butter connoisseur, you need to know your peanut butter. Without a doubt, my favorite peanut butter comes from Peanut Butter & Co. I found Peanut Butter & Co. years ago on a trip to NYC when I convinced my parents to have lunch there. It was amazing! A visit to this restaurant should be on the bucket list of all PB fans. Then, a couple of years later I walked into a Wegmans grocery store and saw their brand of PB on the shelves.

Now that I can get it in Pennsylvania, this is the only peanut butter I buy. And since it is recommended by the fine folks over at Eat This, Not That, I feel even better about enjoying it.

Now, the geniuses at Peanut Butter & Co. don't just make creamy and crunchy PB, they've extended their line to include such gems as White Chocolate Wonderful (PB mixed with white chocolate), Cinnamon Raisin Swirl, Mighty Maple, and more. But this particular recipe uses the awesome Dark Chocolate Dreams...yup, peanut butter and dark chocolate mixed together.

I came up with the idea for chocolate peanut butter pretzel cookies after trying a biscotti at a fair made with those ingredients. Technically, these cookies are double chocolate, double peanut butter pretzel cookies. The base is your basic peanut butter cookie, but I replaced the regular PB with Peanut Butter & Co.'s Dark Chocolate Dreams.

After creaming the butter, peanut butter, sugar and adding the eggs, flour, vanilla and baking soda, I added the chocolate and peanut butter chips, I used a full bag of each. When it came to the pretzels,I thought long and hard about what size and shape. I decided to use thin pretzel sticks and broke them into small pieces, I used a little more than a cup.

I took a generous tablespoon of dough, rolled it into a ball, and flattened them slightly on the cookie sheet.

I baked them for 12 minutes.

They came out a little crispy and full of amazing flavor! Sweet, salty, and peanut buttery.

Recipe: 

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups Peanut Butter & Co. Dark Chocolate Dreams
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 bag peanut butter chips
1 heaping cup thin pretzel sticks, broken into small pieces

 Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Sift together flour and baking soda, set aside

With stand mixer (or hand held mixer) cream butter, sugars, and peanut butter together.

 Add eggs and vanilla, mix.

 Add flour mixture and combine.

 Add chips and pretzels and mix until just combined.

 Take a generous tablespoon sized ball of dough, set on parchment paper lined cookie sheet and flatten slightly.

 Bake for 12 minutes or until bottom is slightly browned.

 Enjoy!

Girl Scout Cookie Truffles

It's that time of year again! Girl Scout Cookie time! I was a Girl Scout for 7 years and sold many, many boxes to kind neighbors and patient strangers. As an adult, I used to never buy them because they're too much of a temptation to have in the house (Curse you Tagalongs!). But then a young friend joined Girl Scouts and I had to support her.

I decided to order a couple of boxes of the new Savannah Smiles Cookies and Thin Mints so I could come up with a way to use them.


I know making "truffles" out of cookies is nothing new. I made the famous Oreo truffles a couple of years ago; super easy, very rich, and really good. I used the Savannah Smiles to make that kind of truffle, which I consider "Cheater Truffles" because, let's be honest here, grinding up cookies and mixing them with cream cheese isn't a real truffle.

Let's start with the Savannah Smiles Truffles.



I took 2 boxes of the new lemon cookies and ran them through the food processor until they were chopped up into small pieces (you could also put the cookies in a freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin). I then added an 8oz block of cream cheese and pulsed the food processor to combine.



After lining a cookie sheet with parchment paper, I took a heaping tablespoon and rolled the cookies and cream cheese into small balls. I covered the cookie sheet with plastic wrap and stuck it in the freezer for an hour.



Now, let me just start by saying that I hate dipping things into chocolate (truffles, cake balls, etc). It never works out too well for me and I have no patience for it. The only way I actually enjoy doing it is if I use a lollipop stick and turn them into cake pops or truffle pops. Next time I make these, I'm going to do that.

I melted white candy melts and coated the truffles and allowed them to set. Then I melted yellow candy melts and drizzled it over the top and finished them off with a yellow candy butterfly, just because.

With the Thin Mints I made real truffles using Alton Brown's Chocolate Truffle recipe as the base and tweaking it a little.



His recipe calls for 10oz of bittersweet chocolate. After grounding up the Thin Mints in the food processor...


I combined 5 oz of the Thin Mints and 5 oz of Special Dark chocolate chips.



Following Alton Brown's recipe, I added 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter and put it in the microwave for two 30 second intervals, stirring between.




I heated 1/2 cup of heavy whipping creaming and 1 tablespoon of light corn syrup to simmering and then poured it over the chocolate, letting it sit for two minutes. I mixed it until smooth and poured it into a ceramic dish, covering it with plastic wrap and putting it in the fridge for an hour.



I then used a 1/2 tablespoon to scoop out the ganache and set it on a parchment lined cookie sheet to set in the fridge for another hour.




In his recipe, Alton Brown lightly coats the truffles in chocolate before rolling it in cocoa. I started rolling my truffles in melted dark chocolate before rolling it in the leftover crushed up Thin Mints.



This just proved to be too messy and created lumpy truffles. The ganache itself was sticky enough for the Thin Mints to stick to them, so I stopped using the chocolate and just coated the truffles in the Thin Mints.

These truffles all ended up being super rich, but delicious! In the future, I think I'd make the Savannah Smiles truffles a little smaller, otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing.



I think the Savannah Smiles would make a great crust for lemon bars or lemon/blueberry bars.

Looks like I'm going to have to order more cookies.