Originally seen in Southern Living, Freezer Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are slice and bake peanut butter cookies with slightly unusual ratios. The dough, which starts out very soft, is wrapped tightly and frozen for future use. When you are ready to bake, you'll have two cylinders of dough that can be sliced right away (if you are willing to put up with a little crumbling) or quickly thawed and sliced.
When I first made these I was surprised at how the cookies held their shape. The cookies looked as if they had been cut off a roll, which is a look I like because it reminds of the old public school peanut butter cookies. But similarities to cookies of my youth ended with appearance. Instead of being crunchy and sandy, these were very tender and not too sweet. I wouldn’t call them “floury” but the high proportion of flour to other ingredients made them almost biscuit-like…but not necessarily bad. Just not as rich as usual cookies or shortbread.
Freezer Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies weren’t what I expected, but after a few bites I realized I liked the contrast between the rich chocolate chips and the light and tender cookie. Without the chocolate chips they wouldn’t have been rich enough, but with the chips they were quite satisfying. I kept going back for more and the kids loved them.
Recipe
Freezer Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter softened (70 grams)
- ½ cup crunchy peanut butter 128 grams
- ¾ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar 150 grams
- 1 large egg
- ⅓ cup milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon plus a big pinch of salt omit pinch if using salted butter
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 ¼ cups all purpose unbleached flour 10.1 oz or about 290 grams
- 1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate morsels or use more if desired
Instructions
- Beat the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar together until light and creamy. Beat in the egg and milk. Scrape sides of bowl and beat in vanilla and salt. Stir in the baking powder, making sure there are no lumps and that it’s evenly distributed, then add the flour and stir until it’s fully blended. At this point, the dough might be too soft to shape (mine was). Chill it for about an hour.
- Dump the dough onto a big sheet of waxed paper or non-stick foil, divide into two sections, and shape each section into an 8 inch log. Wrap the logs individually in waxed paper and freeze overnight.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Slice the dough into ¼ inch thick slices and place slices on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 F. for 12-14 minutes. Let stand one minute on cookie sheets, then remove from wire racks to cool completely.
Anna says
Anonymous, thanks for the second opinion. I really liked these too, they were just different than I expected them to be. But I liked them and am thinking they'd be even better jam-packed with as many pb and chocolate chips as possible.
Anonymous says
Great simple cookie - my family loved them!
Heather - Ghost Baker says
Yum! This look fun and tasty. That first photo makes me just want to eat the dough 😛
Katrina says
I don't know if I'll be able to get to the cookies, or else I'd say I'd make them right away. Sigh. I like a new, different, interesting cookie like that. And heck, it's pb/chocolate!
I'm not going to enter the scale contest either, really just because I'm so nice to give others a better chance, because I'm sure you would have picked me. jk
Can I just tell you how much I'd like to bake right now! Neck deep in dejunk! Sigh.
Anna says
Louise, I'd be interested in to hear your review of these cookies. They were different, that's for sure. And I'm not saying "different" in a bad way because we really liked them -- they just weren't what I was expecting. I love how they look.
Louise says
Those are certainly different looking pb cookies. I have Southern Living Annuals going back 30 years. My sister used to buy a case of them to give out at Christmas. 🙂 That's a nice give away you have going. I avoided entering to give others a better chance to win, but I have to admit that pb, honey, molasses and all the other gooey things are what I hate to measure. If I'm lucky, I can measure them in something that's already been greased. I have a 7001dx that I'm pretty happy with.