THE cookies

I love Trader Joe's. I REALLY love Trader Joe's mini peanut butter cups. not much bigger than a chocolate chip, they are great for snacking but just begged to be baked into something.

I knew I needed a chocolate cookie. And it had to be soft. The wafer I make for oreos are good, but I know that the frosting around which they are sandwiched is the real reason for there delicious softness. and they aren't quite sweet enough for what I imagined. Looking around on the internet and my trusy "How to Cook Everything" didn't find me the recipe I wanted.

So, I did some math and some hard thinking about what altering each ingredient in a cookie recipe would mean... and I took the plunge and baked my own creation.

And it was PERFECT. soft and almost with a cake-like texture, they are chocolate-ly and sweet and the perfect vehicle for my mini pb cups. These prictures are lousy (I was too busy eating them for pictures!) but they passed the finicky-boyfriend test.



my notes are scribbled-upon and chocolate-stained, but I'm SO glad I kept them.


Chocolate Cookies w/ Mini PB cups
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teas baking powder
1 stick plue 2 tablespoons softened butter
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teas. vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup Saco cocoa (it's a blend of traditional and dutch-processed cocoa... and I order it by the case.)
1 1/2 cups pb cups

1. preheat the oven to 375.
2. beat together butter and sugar, add vanilla and egg.
3. stir in dry ingredients
4. mix in pb cups
5. put in rounded balls on a cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 9 minutes, turning once.
yield: 3 1/2 dozen.

enjoy!

I still need a recipe for THE chocolate chip cookie. The New York Times recently posted an article about that very quest and I'm looking forward to trying out their recipe.

Leaving the cocoa out of this recipe and swapping in some chocolate chips might do it for me, though.