Chocolate-Swirled Peanut Butter Cookies

Rob, my fiancé, eats entirely too much peanut butter.

We bought the BIGGEST container of peanut butter three weeks ago—it was maybe a pound?—and it is now GONE. Poof. Gone. What does he do with all of this peanut butter? I’m not sure. I know that every time he sits down to eat a PB&J sandwich, he eats two. Heck, I maybe eat ONE peanut butter and jelly sandwich a year. How can somebody love peanut butter so much???

So, while at the grocery store yesterday, we bought a whopping FOUR POUNDER of peanut butter. Hopefully it will last a bit longer than the last one. Who knows, though. That guy can put away some freaking peanut butter!

I haven’t made peanut butter cookies since I moved to Oklahoma almost four years ago, so I sat down to make some yesterday. I pulled this chocolatey swirled recipe out of the box and even though it looked difficult to make, I was fully prepared to spend an afternoon baking some delicious cookies.

And boy, what a good decision that was. These cookies turned out perfect, albeit not so prettily-swirled like I had hoped. Who knew chocolate and peanut butter would taste so good together in cookie form? Oh, probably EVERYBODY, but hey—I had never thought to combine the two.

This recipe calls for making two separate doughs: one peanut butter and one cocoa-powder chocolate. To swirl them together, I laid the chocolate dough on top of the peanut butter and then rolled them up jelly roll style. The recipe originally called to knead the two doughs together to swirl them, but I thought rolling them up would create a better spiral of chocolate. The spiral-look I had in my head didn’t translate so well onto the cookies; in fact, they look more TIE DYED than anything else. 

What really counts is the taste, however. You can CLEARLY taste both peanut butter goodness AND its chocolatey counterpart. It’s almost as if a Reese’s peanut butter cup was melted into cookie form. If you have the time, and the patience, I highly recommend this recipe!

Chocolate-Swirled Peanut Butter Cookies

For the Peanut Butter Dough:

• 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

For the Chocolate Dough:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

1. In a large bowl, make the peanut butter dough: Cream butter, peanut butter and both sugars together until smooth. Beat in egg. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the creamed sugar mixture and mix well (I made three additions of flour to the creamed mixture to make for easier mixing without making the bowl overflow or spill).
3. In another large bowl, make the chocolate dough: Cream butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla extract. In another bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt together. Gradually add to the creamed butter mixture and mix well until well-combined. Set aside.
4. On a lightly floured surface, gently knead out the peanut butter dough in an oval shape until less than 1/4″ thickness. Put chocolate dough on top of the peanut butter dough and gently knead out until the chocolate dough almost reaches the edges of the peanut butter dough.
5. Starting at the edge of the doughs closest to you, roll up jelly roll style. Continue rolling until a log shape is formed and you can no longer see the chocolate dough. Cover with saran wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
6. Remove dough log from fridge and slice into discs about 1/4″-1/2″ in thickness. Lightly grease a baking sheet and set cookies 2 inches apart on sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes at 350 degrees or until the bottoms and edges of the cookies are lightly browned. Cool for two minutes and then remove from baking sheet.

Enjoy!

-Leen

PS: You can easily freeze the dough log for up to 3 months as long as you keep it sealed in saran wrap. Just fully thaw the dough in the fridge and then slice your cookies and bake! This recipe makes a TON of cookies—I think I got around 40 regular-sized cookies out of the dough. So, freezing some of the dough might be a good idea!