I spend a lot of time looking at desserts online, in books and magazines, and on tv. I'm always looking for ideas or a spark of inspiration. Recently it seems chocolate and peanut butter desserts have become widely popular. I mean, who doesn't love chocolate and peanut butter together? I knew I wanted to make a cookie, but I really wanted to play around with adding stuff to a base cookie. It is a lot harder than you might think. Everything you add changes the texture, the flavor, the cooking time and so many other factors. I think I finally came up with a cookie that I can be proud to put my name on.
I started out with a chocolate cookie base that was soft and chewy like a brownie. I knew I wanted to add in peanut butter candies for their flavor and crunch, but I needed something salty to offset the sweetness. I thought pretzels would be a nice addition for their texture and saltiness. While that combination was okay, I thought it still needed something. So I added in some semi-sweet chocolate chips for little more bits of chocolate flavor. It worked well, but the cookie lost some of the peanut butter flavor, so I decided to do a mix of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. That seemed to do the trick. The result is an explosion of sweet, chocolatey, salty and peanut buttery goodness. I highly recommend putting this cookie in the microwave for a few seconds before eating to get a straight out of the oven experience. Also, make sure you have a large glass of cold milk to go with it. Trust me, you'll want it.
I sent in the cookie to my usual tasters at YCAP, and the response I got back was overwhelming. "This better be on the next menu." "Can I place an order for these today?" And "Yummy Yummy Yummy!!!"
