These Peanut Butter Patties started out as an adaptation of Girl Scouts’ Tagalongs. There are already quite a few Tagalongs copycats out there, many of which promise a replica so close you can’t tell the difference. But an exact copy wasn’t what I was going for – why go to the trouble of making cookies at home just to try to recreate the mass-produced ones made with hydrogenated oils and artificial flavors? I decided to raise the bar by using premium ingredients, making the cookies bigger (and much more chocolate-y), using a tender homemade butter cookie for a base, and adding a pinch of flaky sea salt as a finishing touch. The end result gives a nod to the Tagalong, but surpasses it in every way.
With their thick chocolate cloak, these Peanut Butter Patties are really more candy than cookie. This is where homemade really outshines the commercial version: instead of an artificially flavored chocolate coating, or inexpensive chocolate thinned with oil, I used high quality chocolate from a local candy shop and laid it on generously. If you don’t have a local source for premium chocolate, a high-end international brand like Callebaut is a good substitute.
A blend of 80% milk chocolate and 20% semisweet gives the coating a darker color and a slightly more complex flavor than using milk chocolate alone.
Underneath all that glorious chocolate is a fresh-baked cookie – buttery, crispy and flaky – smeared with a fluffy peanut butter filling.
To coat the cookies on both sides with chocolate, you could toss each cookie into a deep pool of chocolate – but that would be pretty wasteful. In order to make the pool deep enough to submerge the cookies in, you’d have to melt a lot of extra chocolate. My trick for coating these cookies without wasting chocolate is to do it in two steps. First, drop the cookies into a shallow bowl of chocolate, peanut-butter-side up, to coat the bottoms and a little bit up the sides. Carefully remove them and set them aside to allow the chocolate to firm up.
After another shallow dunk in the chocolate – this time peanut-butter-side down – the finishing touch is a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, which cuts through the richness of the chocolate, brings out the taste of the peanut butter, and elevates these cookies to a level far above the ones in the little red box.
Making these ahead and what to do with leftovers:
- I like to store these Peanut Butter Patties in the refrigerator, to keep the chocolate nice and firm. They’ll keep for several days. If you want to keep them longer than that, chill them until firm and then freeze them in a freezer-safe zip-lock bag for up to a month.
Peanut Butter Patties
Ingredients
- 8 tablespoons (4 ounces or ½ cup) unsalted butter, preferably European-style, softened
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract, divided
- 1¼ cup (5¼ ounces or 150 grams) all-purpose flour
- Kosher salt
- ½ cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 8 ounces milk chocolate, chopped
- 2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
- Flaky sea salt (such as Maldon)
Directions
- Step 1 Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment and a third with wax paper.
- Step 2 In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon of the vanilla and beat briefly to combine.
- Step 3 Add the flour and a large pinch of kosher salt. Beat on very low speed just until the mixture starts to come together and form a crumbly dough.
- Step 4 Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and gather it together into a smooth ball. Roll it out with a lightly floured rolling pin to a thickness of slightly less than ¼ inch. Cut the cookies out with a 2½-inch round cutter, gathering up the scraps and rerolling until all the dough is used, transferring the cookies to the parchment lined baking sheets and spacing them out evenly. Bake the cookies one sheet at t a time on the center rack of the oven until they just start turning light golden brown around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Watch carefully during the last couple of minutes and don’t let them get brown. Cool the cookies on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Step 5 Meanwhile, combine the peanut butter, confectioner’s sugar and remaining ¼ teaspoon of vanilla in a clean mixer bowl and beat on medium-high speed until fluffy.
- Step 6 Combine the milk and semisweet chocolate in a shallow bowl with a flat bottom. Microwave the chocolate on 50% power for 3 minutes, then stir until the all chocolate is melted and smooth. If any stubborn lumps of chocolate won’t melt, microwave for 30 seconds more, then stir until smooth.
- Step 7 Spread a scant tablespoon of peanut butter filling on each cookie, spreading it out to cover the cookie in a thick layer. Place the cookie into the chocolate with the peanut butter side up, to coat the bottom and up the sides with chocolate. Using two forks to cradle the cookie, carefully remove it to the wax paper lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining cookies.
- Step 8 Chill the cookies on the sheet for 30 minutes (or let them sit at room temperature for a couple of hours), or until the chocolate is completely set. Set the leftover chocolate aside for later.
- Step 9 When the chocolate on the bottom of the cookies is set, reheat the leftover chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds, then stir to loosen. Repeat if needed to get the chocolate to the right consistency. Line a fresh baking sheet with waxed paper. Use your hands this time to hold each cookie peanut butter side down and dip it into the chocolate to cover the top. Transfer the cookie to the clean wax paper with the wet/peanut butter side up. Use the back of a spoon to carefully smooth the chocolate out to completely cover the peanut butter if necessary. Repeat with the remaining cookies, using the spoon to scoop up the last bits of chocolate from the bowl and dollop it over the cookies as you get near the end.
- Step 10 Let the chocolate on the top of the cookies set most of the way but not completely, about an hour at room temperature. When the chocolate is no longer wet but still slightly tacky, sprinkle the top of each cookie with some of the flaky sea salt. Let the cookies set completely before serving or storing.
