Chunky peanut butter and chocolate candy cookies

Siblings don’t always have similar tastes and preferences. Just because two people have the same parents, were raised in the same house, went to the same schools, etcetera etcetera, it doesn’t mean they’ll turn out the same. Sam and Alex have different tastes in music, in food, in entertainment and in a lot of other things. I remember writing about their vegetable preferences once, how Alex likes broccoli which Sam hates and how Sam loves cauliflower which Alex hates, and how, one time, to prevent them from bickering and accusing me of favoring one over the other, I cooked a dish that had broth broccoli and cauliflower in it. You know, to be fair.

The thing about teenagers living away from home during weekdays is how they miss home cooked meals and how they want to eat over the weekend everything they couldn’t have during the previous five days. They request everything — from cookies to cakes to adobong sitaw to fried hito and tilapia to tortang talong. And the thing about acquiescing to the request of one daughter is how I have to grant one request of the other daughter too. Otherwise, someone will go on a monologue about why I cooked “what she wanted but not what I wanted.”

That’s basically how these cookies came to be. Yesterday, Alex wanted corn dogs, I made corn dogs, Sam does not eat hotdogs and, for her it’s-my-turn-to-request, asked for cookies. And she was very specific about what cookies — she wanted something with peanut butter and the bag of sugar-coated chocolate candies had to be mixed in.

I graduated from Hogwarts, have I mentioned that? I swished my wand and we had these cookies. Okay, I wish that were possible. Wouldn’t food blogging be a breeze? But, seriously… I have this recipe for peanut butter and chocolate chip brownies, and I wondered if I could use the recipe to bake cookies instead. Why not, really, brownies are classified as cookies, after all? Instead of chocolate chips, however, I’d use the sugar-coated chocolate candies. And that’s what I did. And the result is what I consider to be the best cookies I’ve ever baked. Crunchy outside, chewy inside, rich but not cloying and all that texture!

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Chunky peanut butter and chocolate candy cookies

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Total Time 22 minutes

Servings 24

Author Connie Veneracion

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter softened
• 1 cup loosely packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/3 cup chunky peanut butter
• 3/4 cup sugar-coated chocolate candies (branded or generic; the latter is available at baking supply stores)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Line a baking tray with non-stick paper.
3. In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt.
4. With a wire whisk, beat the butter, peanut butter and sugar until light in texture.
5. Add the egg and beat until the mixture is smooth.
6. Add the flour mixture, in three batches, mixing after each addition (you’ll have to use a wooden spoon at this stage as the cookie dough will be too heavy for the wire whisk). Fold in the chocolate candies.
7. Using a small ice cream scoop, form the dough into mounds and drop onto the lined baking tray about two inches apart.
8. Bake at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes or until the bottoms are lightly browned.
9. Cool on the tray for about five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
10.