Week 13: Peanut Butter Marble Cookies

March 1st was the day my beloved cousin AP was born. It is also the day that Bosnia and Herzegovina declared their independence in 1992 and the birthday of Justin Bieber (perhaps you've heard of him?). But more importantly, it is  National Peanut Butter Lovers' Day!

This comes to me as a shock because I've lived all these years under the impression that everyday was PB lovers' day. Surely a dip/spread/stand-alone meal as delicious as PB deserves more than one day a year to celebrate its many fans. But I guess when there's only 365 days in year and you're competing with World Nutella Day (Feb 5th) and National Chocolate Chip Cookie day (May 15th), you'll have to settle for the first day of March.

I celebrated by abandoning my anatomy notes and baking up these marbleised PB Chocolate cookies. I needed somewhere to start so they're loosely based upon this widely acclaimed recipe  from allrecipes.

These turned out chewy and wonderful and I have to constantly remind myself not to offer any to my nut-allergic roommate PB (love how ironic her initials are). The only disappointment I have now is how I have 1/2 cup less of peanut butter in my cupboard than before.

Happy celebrating,

CollegeBakerGirl

Peanut Butter Marble Cookies

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

• 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (Separated) (I used whole wheat because that's all I had)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup softened salted butter (Add a pinch of extra salt if using unsalted)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar (you could probably cut this down to 1/4-1/3 cup)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

**Do not preheat oven yet, the dough needs fridge time

1. Cream butter, both sugars and peanut butter.  Then add egg and vanilla, mix.
2. Sprinkle salt and baking soda and mix again.
3. Scoop 3/4 cup of the batter into a separate bowl (this will become your chocolate dough)
4. Add cocoa and 1/4 cup flour into the 3/4 cup dough you just separated, mix until combined.
5. To the remaining dough, add 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons of flour. Mix
6. Chill the dough until firm, half an hour should do.
7. Gather both doughs into a ball and place to chocolate dough over the peanut dough, knead until marbleised
8. Chill dough again and preset oven to 375F
9. Scoop slightly heaping tablespoons of dough onto a baking sheet and make a criss-cross mark with a fork. Bake for 6-7 minutes (I lined with parchment).
10. Leave to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before removing

Per cookie:

60 calories | 5g sugar | 3g fat