DARK CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

This is the view looking from the library towards the front yard.  Yes, we have had (and still have) mountains of snow, and there's more on the way.  I love snow, and cold days inspire me to bake.  So here's the promised second recipe from the Levain Bakery knockoffs.  She believes that the bakery uses Guittard chocolate chips, so I got some from Amazon.  The Reese's peanut butter chips are easy to come by these days.  These cookies are so gooey and good that they completely satisfy my embarrassing craving for Reese's peanut butter eggs.

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

2 sticks (8 oz) cold and cubed unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups superfine sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup good quality dark chocolate cocoa powder (either ScharffenBerger or King Arthur's Double Dutch Cocoa)
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups AP or Perfect Pastry flour, spoon and sweep or by weight
1/4 tsp Kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 10 oz package Reese's peanut butter chips

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugar until well blended and fluffy.

Add eggs and beat until well-incorporated,

then beat in cocoa powder.

add vanilla.

Mix in flour, salt and baking powder until just combined.

Gently fold in chocolate and peanut butter chips.

This next step reminds me of making mud pies.  Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients.  The dough will be very sticky, so you may want to flour your hands.

 

Divide the dough into 12 equal portions, about 4 oz each.  I always do well with the first two cuts, in half and then in half again.  The challenge is dividing the remaining dough into thirds.  On the other hand, you can just keep pinching off bits of dough to redistribute until they all look pretty even.

Roll them into balls and place on two parchment lined pans.

Place the pans in the freezer for 45 minutes to an hour.  About this time, you can begin preheating your oven to 350 degrees.

Bake for 16 minutes, turning them half way.  Take care not to overbake.


See how beautiful it looks.  I like to serve them as they come out of the oven, which is easy to do since they can wait in the freezer while you make dinner. If they have cooled off, about 5-10 seconds in the microwave will soften the chips again.  If they last more than one day, you can freeze them and microwave for about 26 seconds. 

What we're eating Feb 19-26

Did pretty well last week, following the plan.  It helps that I built in some leftovers nights, since the freezer was getting pretty packed.  We're all getting weary of the cold weather, with piles of snow everywhere, and now that the temperatures are starting to go up, melting snow turning into ice on the driveway and front walk.  We're still hoping that the snow pack on the roof will melt sometime soon, so we can have heat tape put on it.  We have some VERY impressive icicles, killer icicles if anyone walked under them.  It wouldn't be so bad, but there's one corner where there are some bad consequences (like water that gets behind the bricks and then seeps into the basement), so we have to take care of it.  Anyway, we're still thinking about cold weather meals, reflected in the menus:

Wednesday:  Stuffed pork chops
Thursday:  Chicken and Mushrooms with Dumplings, Chocolate Peanut butter chip cookies--Allison is visiting, so we have to have chocolate :)
Friday:  Crab cakes and green salad
Saturday:  Leftovers
Sunday:  Grilled lime hanger steak, french fries
Monday: Barramundi with lemon and ginger, green beans with almonds
Tuesday:  out

Watch for the Chocolate Peanut butter chip cookies, they're relatives of the Levain chocolate chip cookies I posted last week.

LEVAIN-TYPE CHOCOLATE CHIP WALNUT COOKIES

We'll start with the end today.  As you can see above, this chocolate chip cookie has height, and the goal is a crisp exterior with a soft, gooey interior.  As I mentioned in the last post, this recipe comes from parsleysagesweet.com, a cookie blog, and is an attempt to replicate the cookies at Levain Bakery.  Inevitably, we will tinker with the recipe (both the original author and myself).  This is my first attempt, and they were quite good.  I will continue to work on it and write about it as well.  

Levain Bakery Copycat Chocolate Chip Cookies 

2 sticks 'cold and cubed' unsalted butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

1 3/4 cup AP flour

1 1/2 cup pastry flour

3/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups ScharffenBerger bittersweet chocolate chunks (you can use semisweet if you like)

1 cup walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy.  Note, that the butter is taken from the refrigerator and cubed into about 3/4-inch cubes, so it is still a little cold but pliable.

Add eggs, one at a time, then vanilla and beat until well incorporated.

Add flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and mix until just combined.

Gently fold in chocolate chunks and nuts.

Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough  by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients.  This dough will be stiff (she describes it as feeling like Play-do or the chocolate chip cookie dough you buy in tubes at the grocery store).  Divide into 12 equal portions, about 4 oz each.  The cookies at the bakery are 6 oz each, so if you want to make really giant cookies, divide it into 8 portions.  The ones pictured here are the 4 oz ones.

I decided to make them into balls, because what we're trying to accomplish is some barely cooked dough in the middle, and I think this worked.

Place cookies on a parchment lined pan, 6 to a pan, and place in the freezer, uncovered, for 45 minutes.  This further facilitates the slow baking of the interior.

Bake for about 17-19 minutes.  They will not really brown on top, but watch for some browning around the edges.  Take care not to over bake them.  

Enjoy them right out of the oven, or refresh with about 10 seconds in the microwave.

Yields 12 cookies.

What we're eating Feb 12-19

I'm sitting here watching the snow fall and smelling the granola bake.  There's something about a snowy day that demands baking.  This afternoon, I'm going to try a new chocolate chip cookie recipe.  I thought you might be interesting in learning how I was inspired to try yet another recipe.  Last weekend I was on my exercise bike and the only thing on was "The Best Thing I Ever Ate:  Chocolate."  Rocco DeSpirito chose the double chocolate chip cookie at Levain Bakery in NYC.  He described it as crunchy on the outside, but soft and moist on the inside, and it looked wonderful.  The bakers wouldn't reveal the recipe or their secrets, but I took to the internet, and there's a whole world of food bloggers trying to figure out things like this.  I kept getting referred back to one called parsleysagesweet.com and then I just had to try it.  What I like is that people have tried the recipe and written in to suggest improvements, like using pastry flour instead of AP, and probably most important, freezing the dough before baking.  So I will photograph the process [alert:  my photos are not nearly as artistic as Steve's, but he's at work] and post the recipe sometime later.  Steve's research group meets tomorrow, so they'll be my guinea pigs.

Wednesday:  Leftover Crispy Orange Beef
Thursday:  Leftover Mushroom Lasagna
Friday:  assorted leftovers
Saturday:  Enchiladas Suisse
Sunday:  Chicago-style deep dish pizza
Monday:  Leftovers
Tuesday:  Gumbo

The freezer is pretty full, so we're trying to work through some of the leftovers.  That makes for very relaxing days for me :)

What we're eating Feb 5-11

Here's what I have planned:

Wednesday:  Seared Salmon with Basil, quinoa
Thursday:  Leftovers (Steve's out again)
Friday:  Crispy Orange Beef, rice
Saturday:  Red Snapper, Vera Cruz style
Sunday:  Texas Chili, Cornbread
Monday:  Grilled Mahi Mahi with Thai Coconut Sauce
Tuesday:  Chili Pie

It's pretty ambitious, but I think it will be okay.  I'm also baking brownies tomorrow, so Steve can take some to his research group meeting on Friday.

What we're eating Jan 29-Feb 4

I did pretty well sticking with the plan last week, only pushing Tuesday's dinner off to Wednesday because Steve had a reception to go to.  This past week has been a sparse cooking week because we had an accumulation of leftovers, and because we went to Pittsburgh to see Matt, Jenna and Sam.

Wednesday:  Beef Stroganoff
Thursday:  Pulled Pork
Friday:  Leftovers
Saturday:  Out
Sunday:  Pulled Pork
Monday:  Mushroom Lasagna
Tuesday:  Barbecue Baked Stuffed Potatoes

I'm feeling confident, since it's already Tuesday today :)