52 Cookies - Chapter 26

The folks over at the M&M/Mars Company recently unveiled a new variety of M&M's with pretzels inside.  People are really into the salty sweet combination these days.  I featured a salty sweet cookie a few weeks ago back in Chapter 23 of my Cookie Journey because I kept coming across recipes of that nature in my "research."

This week's cookie is great because it's different and yet, it uses ingredients that I already have on-hand.  I really dislike having to make a special trip to the store for a particular ingredient or buying a special ingredient and never finding a use for the rest of the container.  I love peanut butter filled pretzels.  I especially love chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels!  These cookies remind me of that combination, are simple to put together, and are yummy to eat!  For the life of me, I cannot recall where I got this recipe.  I apologize.  I feel bad when I cannot give credit where credit is due.  I'll go eat a cookie to help myself feel better.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Here's What You'll Need:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup crushed pretzel pieces
1 cup chocolate chips

Here's What You Do:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and if you're into lining your cookie sheets, get out the parchment paper and do that.  Beat the butter, peanut butter, sugar and brown sugar until creamed.  Add the vanilla and eggs and mix well.  Combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda in a small bowl.  I like to take my small whisk and whisk the dry ingredients before I add it.  Now, with the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients.  Once you have that just mixed, go ahead and add the crushed pretzels and chocolate chips.  Turn your mixer on low and get it all worked in together but do not over-mix.  You might pulverize the pretzels and you want them to be in big enough pieces to offer some real crunch.

I used my small cookie dough scoop to scoop the dough out onto the cookie sheet.  I also took the liberty to smoosh (technical term) the dough down just a bit.  Into the oven for anywhere from 8-10 minutes.  I found 9 minutes to work well. 

Remember:   Under-baking = chewy cookie.

These cookies were a hit with my family.  I got about 4 dozen cookies out of this recipe.  So it goes without saying, some of these need to leave the house before they all end up on my thighs and buttocks.  I filled a bag with some and took them to Evan's baseball game to pass around.  After we got home, more cookies went  into a container and off to work with my husband.  I hope they enjoy them as much as I would have!

Note...I am now officially halfway through my cookie journey.  26 cookies down...26 more to go!