Elle's New England Kitchen

And oh my gosh, are they good! I have been thinking about mixing pretzels in a peanut butter cookie for about a month now, and I just got around to making them yesterday. I'm also behind a week in my holiday baking series! Stupid cold/flu/knock-you-on-your-butt thing I had. But I'm slowly emerging from my cocoon of tissues and my (nearly) drunken stupor of cold meds, and feeling more like my old self. (Is that a good thing, I wonder? hehe!)



The idea for these came from...well, I don't remember where it came from, but I think it was from one of those candy bars with the chocolate/pb/pretzel combo--my daughter had one a while back. I have a little list I keep near my laptop with ideas for stuff, and this has been on there for a while. I wrote "pb cookies with pretzel pieces and chocolate." I also have a few lime and coconut ideas kicking around on the list. Why lime and coconut in October/November? I have no clue. Cravings, I guess.

These are so easy--just a regular peanut butter cookie, but you add in broken pretzel pieces. I also put a few chocolate chips on top of each one before baking, along with a nice sprinkling of kosher salt. Does it sound funny? Because they taste so good! the kids love them, too. This makes a nice chewy cookie, with some crunch from the pretzels, and a little salt and chocolate action happening on top. And a little bit of peanuts, from the crunchy peanut butter.



The cookie recipe is based on a pb cookie recipe by Sheila Lukins, from her USA cookbook. It makes a nice chewy cookie, with crispier edges. It has 1/2 cup shortening in it, and if you'd rather use all butter, feel free to change that. I find that in these, the shortening gives me the crispy edges and chewy centers.



Peanut Butter Pretzel Cookies
Adapted from Sheila Lukins USA Cookbook Makes 5 dozen good sized cookies.


2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup solid shortening, at room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup chunky peanut butter (I used an organic pb from Trader Joe's)
1 cup salted pretzel pieces
chocolate chips (I always use Ghirardelli Bittersweet ) and kosher salt for toppings




Heat oven to 350°.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, set aside.
Cream the butter, shortening, sugars, and vanilla in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then mix in the peanut butter.
Add the flour mixture a cup at a time and beat at low speed to mix well.
Add pretzel pieces, and turn mixer on low to mix them in and break up any pieces that are too large.
Shape the dough into 1 inch balls and place on parchment lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart.
Press each cookie twice in each direction with a fork to make the classic pb cookie criss-cross design.
Press about 3 chocolate chips gently into each cookie--no need to squish, be gentle.
Sprinkle each cookie with a pinch or two of kosher salt.
Bake 10 minutes. Let cool on sheets for about 2 minutes and transfer to cooling racks.
***Do not over bake! They'll be pale when you take them out of the oven, and will continue to cook
on the sheets for a couple minutes. If you over bake them, they won't be chewy anymore.

One of my best friends, Jen, gave me this recipe the other day. She said they were better than my extra special chocolate chip cookies. Huh? Say what? The hell you say! I figured I'd give them a whirl. Jen's a great baker, so she must know something that I don't, hehe.

She was right. They are better! I admit it. Oh well, I'll feel bad about it later. Maybe. If I do feel badly, I can always cheer myself up with more of these cookies, right?

Not surprisingly, the recipe calls for all purpose flour. Since I'm trying to sneak more whole grain goodness to my kids, I figured I'd be brave and go for broke. I didn't use part white and part whole wheat. Nope. I used ALL whole wheat flour. (I know, you're thinking, "Elle! You wild woman, slow down there!") Well, more specifically, King Arthur Flour White Whole Wheat Flour. This stuff is great! Here's what KAF has to say about the flour:

WHY WE LOVE IT: Unless you love the somewhat assertive flavor of traditional whole wheat, we strongly urge you to use this white whole wheat—or our organic white whole wheat—for your whole-grain baking. Lighter colored, milder tasting, and a somewhat finer grind, it acts much more like white flour in baking. We routinely substitute white wheat for 100% of the all-purpose flour in cookie, muffin, brownie, pancake, and other recipes where the difference won’t be noticeable. Like, don’t make an angel food cake with it; but gingerbread? Chocolate chip cookies? Cinnamon muffins? Go for it!

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Right out of the oven, the cookies tasted sort of "wheaty." But as they cooled, the wheat flavor faded, and by the next day, they tasted like they were made with regular white flour. We love them. I increased the salt to 1 tsp. Oh, the recipe only makes 18 cookies--I wanted more, so made them smaller, about the size of a walnut, and got about 32. They still took more time to bake, but again, the oven is only at 325°. Mine baked for about 15 or so minutes. And since it's a small amount of dough, I think 1 1/2 cups may be too many chocolate chips. Wait...did I really just say too much chocolate? God help me, I think I did. I think one cup would be plenty in these, but that's up to you to decide.