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.

Gooey Rolo Brownies

I seem to be on a bit of a chocolate caramel kick at the moment. While working on the Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups, I came up with the idea to do Rolo brownies.

Years ago, I made brownies with peppermint patties in the middle. I knew that was the recipe I wanted to tweak, so I did a little online searching and found Hershey's Sensational Peppermint Pattie Brownies. The brownies in this recipe are rich and dense, perfect for supporting the candy in the middle.

I gathered the ingredients, the only changes I made were replacing the peppermint patties with Rolos and using some homemade caramel sauce as a drizzle on top.



The brownies whipped up quickly. I poured half the batter into the 9x13x2 inch pan and then layered the Rolos. I lined them up, alternating right side up and upside down to get as many in as I could. I used two 12oz bags of Rolos with about 8 leftover.



I didn't go all the way to the edges with the candy because I wanted the brownies to fill in around the edges and keep the candy on the inside only.



I poured the rest of the batter on top and carefully spread it, trying to not move the Rolos around too much.



I baked them for 50 minutes. The recipe calls for 50-55 minutes, I always bake brownies a little less so they're soft and a bit fudgy.



There was homemade caramel left over from my last baking experiment and I heated it up until it was the right consistency. Then, using a fork, I drizzled the caramel over the brownies.



I thought that I was done, when I saw the last few Rolos left over. I came up with the idea of taking each candy and cutting it in 6 pieces.



While the brownies were still hot, I sprinkled the pieces of Rolo all over the top.



Because the brownies were hot, the candy melted a bit more into little rivers of caramel oozing out of the chocolate.



These amazing brownies came out as gooey, chocolatey, caramely bites of awesomeness!

I am now trying to come up with more recipes using Rolos. They melted beautifully and the possibilities are endless.

Cookie Experiment #3: Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups

McDonalds has this limited release McFlurry out there right now made with Rolos. I've heard several people go on and on about how good it was and it got me thinking about what I could make with Rolos. My first thought was brownies, but I wanted more of a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I'm still thinking about those brownies...I'm thinking chocolate with a layer of mini Rolos in the middle and caramel on top.

Yeah, those will eventually get made.

Any way, I was driving back to work one night and I had a cookie brainstorm. If they turned out right, they would be more Twix-like than Rolo-like, but I had to make them.

These cookies, the Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups, are a base of shortbread cookies filled with caramel and topped with whipped, dark chocolate ganache.

Only a handful of ingredients are needed. Sugar, flour, vanilla, butter, heavy whipping cream, and dark chocolate. Seriously, that is all you need to make these cookies.



I love shortbread cookies. They are so easy to make and so delicious.



Cream 2 cups of butter and 1 cup of sugar.



Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla and 4 cups of all-purpose flour. I used a a mini muffin pan and a heaping 1/2 Tablespoon of dough.



I balled up the dough and then used the back of the 1/2 Tablespoon to press the dough into the cup.



I baked the cookies for about 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees until they came out golden brown.



While the cookies were baking, I made the ganache. I've made ganache many times in the past and is super easy to make. I heated up 1 cup of heavy whipping cream to simmering and then poured it over 7 oz of dark chocolate.



After letting it sit for a minute, I mixed the chocolate and cream until it was all melted and combined. I covered it in plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming and let it come to room temperature before putting it into the fridge. Once it was cool, I put it in the stand mixer and whipped it up.

I also made caramel just as I had when I made Dark Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies.
I played around with it a bit because I wanted the caramel to be a thicker, so after making it, I put it back in a heavy pan over low heat, stirring it and adding sugar a Tablespoon at a time until it was the thickness I wanted.

When the cookies were done and cooled, the caramel was the correct thickness, and the ganache whipped and put in a piping bag, it was time to assemble.



I poured about a teaspoon of caramel in to the cookie cup and then topped it with a flourish of the ganache.



These cookies turned out delicious and decadent.



I plan on experimenting more. Next time I want to make them thumbprint cookies with a drizzle of milk chocolate over top.

Easy Trader Joe's Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

I've already shared with you my love of Trader Joe's. Every time I enter one, I find something new.

I spent Thanksgiving with my brother and his family in Illinois and, of course, we took a trip to Trader Joe's. My brother proceeded to follow me around the store telling me I need to buy Trader Joe's brand of Chocolate Frosting mix. I really didn't want to because no matter what I make, I always make my frosting from scratch, it's easy and it tastes better than any store bought kind. But after having my brother follow me down three aisles, telling me how awesome this frosting was, I broke down and bought it. I also found a jar of Fleur de Sel Caramel Sauce. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but I felt the need to buy it.

I had to go in to work on a Sunday evening, so I decided to bake something to take in with me. I didn't feel like going all out and getting all fancy, so I started with yellow cupcakes from a mix. I was out of vegetable oil, but I did find cinnamon applesauce in the fridge. Just let me say, that from now on, whenever I make a cake from a mix, I am using cinnamon applesauce. It adds a subtle cinnamon flavor that just deepens the flavor of the cake. So good!

I quickly whipped up the Trader Joe's Frosting mix. All it called for was 1 stick (4oz) of softened butter and enough hot water, added 1 tablespoon at a time, to get the right consistency.

I have to admit, the frosting was very good. Creamy and chocolaty, a great consistency. It won't replace my chocolate buttercream, but definitely something I'll use again.

I microwaved the caramel sauce for about twenty seconds (I stirred it after 10 seconds) so that it was thin enough to spread easily.

I spread a little bit of frosting on each cupcake, then used my Wilton #18 tip to pipe a ruffled edge, and then spread about a teaspoon of caramel sauce on top.

These cupcakes worked up very quickly and were so delicious!

I'm planning on going to a Trader Joe's again this coming weekend. I'll be sure to look around for something new to bake.