The Gift of GAB Blog

Found a recipe that sounded good, made a few alterations, and found a winner. If you like Peanut Butter and Chocolate chips, you will love this cookie:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 sticks of butter at room temperature
1-1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 medium eggs (or 2 large/extra-large eggs) at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup peanut butter (see note!!!)
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Semisweet chocolate chips (see note)
Peanuts (optional)
Chocolate ganache (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt and add to the batter, alternating it with the peanut butter until all combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks and peanuts.

Using an ice-cream scoop ( I think mine is a 2oz), scoop out some dough, using the sizes of the bowl to flatten/level the scoop. Drop the ball of dough onto a piece of parchment paper or silicon pad. For regular size cookies, cut the dough balls into half, roll them into balls and place on a cookie sheet. For smaller cookies, divide the dough balls into 1/4s, and then roll them into balls and place on a cookie sheet.

Once on the cookie sheets, press the cookies down with the back of your fingers (make bunny ears, fingers slightly bent but together, and use the finger area between the nail and the 2nd knuckle), until the cookies are round and about 1/4 inch thick. Put into the oven and back for: Regular size 15 minutes, for smaller size around 11minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.

NOTE: Peanut Butter – The original recipe only called for 1 cup of smooth peanut butter (I used Peter Pan), but I found the cookie lacking in taste and texture. So on my second batch, I used 1 1/4 cup of Kroger brand of crunchy Peanut Butter, that uses actual whole pieces of peanuts instead of finely chopped pieces, and that was a whole lot better.

ALSO, I used a typical peanut butter with the recipe. If you use peanut butter that is much sweeter (like Reese’s brand) or use an all natural (just crushed it yourself), then you will need to alter the sugar a bit to fit your brand.

Chocolate Chips – The original called for 1 lb of chocolate chunks, and since I didn’t have chunks, I used regular chocolate chips, and felt that they were just to big. So in the 2nd batch I wanted to use 1 small bag of mini chocolate chips but couldn’t find any, so I used 1 bag of regular chocolate chips, but chopped them up…and that helped with the texture greatly.

Peanuts – depending on how you like your cookies texture and what style of peanut butter you use, you might want to add more chopped up peanuts. I have decided I will put in about 1/2 cup of chopped peanuts in the next batch.

And lastly, Chocolate Ganache. While having the mini or chopped up chocolate chips helped, I think either dunking the cookies into a chocolate ganache half way (think full moon cookies here), or drizzeling them with chocolate after they cool, will help with that Reese Cup flavor.

Image came from: Fare to Remember

This is probably my mother favorite recipe that I do. This recipe makes the perfect bite size delights. Enjoy!

1 Pot Brownies
4 squares of bakers chocolate
1 stick of butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
3/4 cup All Purpose Flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup chopped Pecans (optional)
Mini cupcake/muffin tin
Mini cupcake cups (paper or foil)

Preheat oven to 325°.

In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter. (Be sure not to get water/condensation into the chocolate mixture, or it will gunk up on you.) Once melted, remove the top pan from heat and set on a towel on the counter. Let the chocolate mixture cool down for a few minutes. Once a bit cooler, add the sugar, vanilla and eggs, stirring well after each addition. Add the flour in 1/4 cup batches, incorporating each batch before adding the next. Stir in the salt and nuts.

Put in the cupcake holders into the pan, and then fill each cup up about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove and allow to cool…if you can!

When looking for a recipe for today, somebody suggested a Easter-ish one.  Unfortunately, I really don’t have anything that screams Easter, but this one comes the closest because of a few factors: 1) It’s based off of Chocolate, and 2) The recipes was part of a Geocache, which is sort of a Easter Egg Hunt. (See below to learn more about Geocache).

Kiss This
1 Cans hungry Jack Biscuit, 10 count
1 bag chocolate Hershey Kisses (1 bag of chocolate chips)
Melted butter
Cinnamon Sugar mixture

Open the biscuit containers, and remove the biscuits. Split each biscuit in half, like you would if you were to butter one. Unwrap 20 Kisses.

Place a Kiss on a biscuit half, and wrap them up in the biscuit, rolling them into a ball. Dip each ball into melted butter and then roll the wet ball into the cinnamon sugar mixture. Drop the balls into a pie pan, leaving a small gap between each one, because they will expand somewhat. Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes.

Serve hot—once they have cooled down, the chocolate will resolidfy.

Tip: For little bites, cut each of the biscuits into ¼ pieces. Using Nestle Chocolate chips, insert one of the chips into the center of each piece of biscuit. Finish them up like the bigger versions. Also, you can try using different flavor chips for more unique taste.

Geocache:
This recipe is a unique recipe for us. We found it on a Geocache search. A
Geocache search is like a treasure hunt. You are given a set of GPS coordinates and the hike/treasure hunt begins. When you get the coordinates on the website it tells you the type of cache you are going after and what you need to bring with you.

One our first Geocache hunt, the cache was a recipe. We left a recipe that
was one of our favorites, and took a recipe that somebody else had left. This recipe is a great holiday treat, and will make your house smell great!

Check out the sight: www.geocaching.com