No Tea After 12 // Peanut Butter Pretzel Crunch Cookies

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Peanut Butter Pretzel Crunch Cookies

posted in, Cookies on Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Let's be clear about something from the start...I don't usually go for gimmicky food. That is, any recipe that requires the addition of some kind of ready-to-eat snack food to make it complete. I'm not sure why I have such an aversion to it, but I think it has something to do with the semi-homemade mentality that I just cannot wrap my head around. As such when I first saw this recipe I promptly filed it in the SSB file (secret single behavior) (even though I'm not single) and (sidenote: Carrie it is soooo good to have you back). As I was baking them I kept thinking this is a bit strange, what will the people think? I might lose all of my self-proclaimed cheffy credibility. Heh.

BUT, I really love these cookies and it would of course be very mean of me not to share something I really love because you might really love it too and then I will have good karma. Delicious karma. Cookie karma.

Onto the virtues of these cookies...first, lets discuss the chocolate and peanut butter. For some reason when I think about "American" sweets and candy, this is the first combination that I think of probably because growing up it was the only ice cream flavor I would order, ever. I recently bought an ice cream maker, and that will be the first ice cream I make, but that's fodder for a whole other post. Chocolate and peanut butter seems to be one of those things that has passed the Brits by, sure, they have Reese's in select stores, but its just not really one of the British staples as it is in America. (Good thing hubs likes it, otherwise I would have a lot of cookies to eat on my own. Oh, wait a minute...)

Like other peanut butter varieties these cookies have a squishy, yet slightly sandy texture that crumbles, but not annoyingly so. And the pretzels...after thinking that they may be too crunchy, or too salty, or too weird, well they add just enough crunch and salt for it to feel like you are eating cookies made with chunky peanut butter but without the overpowering nuttiness that can sometimes comes from a double whammy of peanut. To jump on the horrendously over-crowded bandwagon, this could be the perfect combination of salty and sweet. So folks, there's very little reason I can think of to not try these cookies, and that, as they say, is that.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Crunch Cookies

Adapted from several recipes found here.

1 cup / 8oz. unsalted butter, softened
1 cup / 180g smooth peanut butter
3/4 cup / 150g brown sugar
3/4 cup / 145g granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups / 300g plain flour
1 cup / 150g salted mini pretzels, broken by hand into little peoples - use more or less, if you like
1 cup / 180g chocolate chips - again, use more or less, if you like

Preheat the oven to 350f / 180c.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars. Add the eggs and the vanilla extract and mix well. In another medium mixing bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three stages and mix very well. Don't be alarmed if this goes a bit like cement, just think, using all that muscle power means you can eat more cookies afterwards. Or you can get your more muscular significant other to mix it for you, as I did.

Add the pretzels and chocolate chips and mix well.

Using a tablespoon, or a medium cookie scoop, make balls with approx 2 tablespoons of dough. I make all of the balls up first, put them onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and then squish them flat either with my fingers, or you can go with the fork method, I found fingers worked best. Leave about an inch and a half of space in between the cookies as they will expand a little bit, but not loads.

Makes 30-40 cookies, depending on size.

Over to you....

Very nice idea. Thanks a lot for sharing. My daughter definitely loved eating these. Will surely make more of these next week. Kudos!

Yum, these look awesome!

I really want to try these, but being a nut allergy sufferer, I can’t have them… I’m gutted!

Ummmm, so I have looked at this picture at least three times ans salivated like a dog each time! (same with the halloumi asparagusdish, but I just couldn’t come up with a respectable way to describe how much I wanted to lock myself in the house and become obese!) Looks like a batch of cookies are in the Huldin family oven’s future very soon, as the Lehman oven does no have an accurate thermostat. (convenient, eh?!) Well done Aud, you’ve officially cracked my will power. Major fault line. Major.