Since there are very few things that can’t be improved by adding chocolate, I’ve gone ahead and turned my classic Peanut Butter Cookies into Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
These cookies are crumbly and sandy-textured, neither crispy nor soft but hovering somewhere in between with a buttery tenderness that melts in your mouth.
You can use chocolate chips for these cookies if that’s what you have on hand, but I like to use a bar of premium dark chocolate. When you chop a bar of baking chocolate, you end up with chunks of varying sizes, plus a whole lot of slivery shards that, when stirred into cookie dough, form infinite tiny flecks that spread chocolate flavor deep into every bite.
I’ve exercised restraint with the chocolate in these Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies, using a mere four ounces for a recipe that makes 20 cookies. I wanted the peanut butter flavor to take the starring role, enhanced but not overshadowed by the chocolate. If you prefer more chocolate, you can always add more more.
And speaking of making life better with the addition of chocolate, here are a few more cookie ideas: I added milk and white chocolate to the usual semisweet to make Soft Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies, and took my classic Oatmeal Raisin Cookies to a whole new level in these Oatmeal Raisin Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Making these cookies ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies will keep for several days, well wrapped at room temperature.
- To store longer than few days, seal the cookies into freezer-safe zip-lock bags and freeze for up to a couple of months.
- You can also keep the unbaked dough for 24 hours in the refrigerator. Let the dough sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes to make it easier to handle before shaping the cookies.
Peanut Butter Cookies
When you chop the chocolate, there will be lots of tiny shards in addition to chunks of various sizes. Make sure to add these to the dough - they'll blend into the dough and the cookies will have tiny bits of chocolate throughout.
Ingredients
- 1¾ cup (7 3/8 ounces or 210 grams) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt (or ¼ teaspoon Morton’s)
- ½ cup (8 tablespoons, 4 ounces or 113 grams) unsalted butter (preferably European-style), softened
- ¾ cup (6¾ ounces or 190 grams) smooth peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil, such as expeller-pressed canola oil
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar, plus additional for finishing the cookies
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment.
- Step 2 Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
- Step 3 In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, peanut butter and oil together until well blended.
- Step 4 Add the brown sugar and ½ cup of granulated sugar and beat on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and beat briefly to make sure the mixture is thoroughly blended.
- Step 5 Add the dry ingredients and mix, pulsing the machine at first to keep the flour from flying out of the bowl, then increasing to low speed to mix just until the flour is incorporated.
- Step 6 Add the chopped chocolate and briefly mix to combine.
- Step 7 Use a cookie scoop or soup spoon to scoop out golf-ball-sized balls of dough. Roll each ball of dough gently between your palms to form it into a smooth ball, and place the balls on the baking sheets, spacing them out evenly. Moisten a fork with water and dip it into granulated sugar, then use the fork to make a cross-hatch pattern on the top of each cookie, pressing gently. Gently smooth the edges of the cookies with your fingers to bring in any rough edges that would make the finished cookies misshapen.
- Step 8 Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 15 minutes, or until the edges are light golden brown. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
