Once upon a time I combined chocolate and peanut butter.
Luckily for you, it was yesterday. Yesterday!
Luckily for me too. Not so lucky for my thighs or the seven bikinis shoved in the back of my drawer that haven’t seen daylight since this blog began. But who wants to think about spandex strings? Not me.
I like to imagine chocolate and peanut butter married into a fudgy cookie. I also imagine the tequila on my counter begging to be made into a margarita, and the brie in my fridge waiting to be melted with a cocoa-fig spread. And yes, there’s a nail polish shade I want. Small pleasures.
Yesterday I was swept off my feet—not by my husband, who chose to grill in an 80s-worthy tank top and boxer shorts, and not by the DVR, which somehow froze on a shirtless Dancing with the Stars moment. No, I was swept off my feet by a massive chocolate craving. Cho. Co. Late.
It would be nice to say I handled the craving with a single square of dark chocolate after dinner, but I don’t operate that way. If you can stop at one square, more power to you—I’m honestly a little jealous.
If you’re one of those people, I’d still bake you a batch of these cookies. If you’re like me, bake them for yourself and hide the pan. They disappear fast.
Peanut butter + cocoa powder + melted chocolate + chocolate chips = pure bliss. It’s a combination that delivers deep chocolate flavor with a rich, fudgy texture and the nutty warmth of peanut butter.
Triple Threat Chocolate Fudge Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes 30–40 cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder (I use Hershey’s Special Dark)
1 heaping teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted
1 cup milk chocolate chips
Directions:
Cream the butter, peanut butter, and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until incorporated. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt, then add to the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
Stir in the melted semi-sweet chocolate until the dough is uniform, then fold in the milk chocolate chips. Refrigerate the dough for 4–6 hours to firm up.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Scoop large mounds of dough—about 2 tablespoons each—and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving space for spreading. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are set but the centers remain soft. Let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Now I’m off to spend some time on the treadmill—well, maybe thirty minutes—justifying cookies for breakfast. Worth it?
P.S. You can enter a giveaway for red velvet brownies on another site mentioned previously.