Browned Butter Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

I posted a pic of this cookie to Instagram a week ago with the promise of a new blog recipe coming last week. Well you can thank a moody Elsa for freezing the entire kingdom of Arendelle (Boston) for the delay in posting. Mostly because I am a firm believer in the saying – If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, I decided to wait a bit to write this post. Because I had nothing nice to say last week about anything. Business travel, snow, airplanes, trains, the human race. So because I doubt my readers (Mom) would appreciate an explicative-filled recipe post, I decided to wait until I was a little more subdued to write this post. And I can tell you that the calming ‘on-hold’ music from Amex Travel services has driven me into a mildly insane but subdued state tonight (still on hold … 58 minutes and counting) enough so I think I can write up this recipe without dropping any four-letter words (except Snow … the worst of them all).

Now that we’ve got that explanation out of the way, let’s try to find the silver lining in all of this. Over the past week and a half I’ve been able to bake up 3 new delicious recipes, so I will have some more blog posts ready to go even if I am starring in Frozen for the next few weeks. Hooray. So let’s start with these Browned Butter Peanut Butter Chip cookies, which traveled over the hills and through the woods (on a 5 hour train ride) from Boston to Philly last Monday before the storm. So while my coworkers were a little scared to see me show up after a night of no sleep and a crying episode on the train, they were quickly very excited when they saw me pull the bag of cookies out of my laptop bag. And maybe they were just being extra nice to me in my fragile state, but these got over-the-top rave reviews from my coworkers. Will I brave the elements to get them cookies every week? Mehh, maybe not. But it did feel nice to have a “cookie lady” moment again. All of these were gone (crumbs included) within 24 hours, even though there was a limited number of us in the office last week.

I got the inspiration for these cookies after our team trip a week or two back to Insomnia Cookies in downtown Philly, where they served the most delicious warm fresh-baked cookies ever – including one Peanut Butter cookie that had some melty ooey gooey peanut butter chips in it. It was seriously THE BEST peanut butter cookie I’ve ever eaten .. and I am a big peanut butter lover. So I decided to adapt a browned butter peanut butter cookie recipe to be chock full of Reese’s peanut butter chips. And while it was not quite as life-changing as eating an Insomnia Cookie, I think these were a close second in my book. Maybe even the real winner in the eyes of my cookie-hungry coworkers.

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick butter, cut into tablespoons
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Brown the butter in a saucepan over medium-heat and set aside to cool a little while you get the other ingredients together.

Step 2: Sift the flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

Step 3: Cream together the butter and granulated sugar on medium to high until fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add in the vanilla, peanut butter and egg and mix well.IMG_2150

Step 4: Add in the dry ingredients slowly and mix on a low speed until well incorporated. Mix in the peanut butter chips just until they are evenly distributed.IMG_2148

Step 5: On a sil-pat or parchment-lined baking sheet, use a medium size cookie scoop to place even-size balls of dough at least an inch apart. Press down lightly with your fingertips before placing in the oven. Bake at 375 degrees for about 9-11 minutes until they are baked through. Let them sit on the baking sheet for a few minutes out of the oven before transferring them to a cooling rack.IMG_2151

I always like to add a few PB chips on top before baking them, and they made these extra melty and delicious fresh from the oven. I wish I had gotten some direct quotes from my coworkers about how much they loved these cookies, but it was one they said they’d definitely want me to make again. IMG_2152

IMG_2159 I think the nuttiness of the browned butter flavor combined with the saltiness of the peanut butter, and melty chips – all combined together like Captain Planet to make one super-charged peanut butter cookie of epic delicious proportions. Yum.

IMG_2157

IMG_2156

So let me try to think of a recap of the past week. I think I tried to block out the first part of the week from my memory to be honest, so let me think here for a second what, if anything, interesting happened. We almost made it through January snow-free (and even with some warm spells) – but Mother Nature is a tease and started a week ago Saturday with about 6 inches of snow as a preview of what the next week and half had in store. Doesn’t look so bad when it’s barely to your ankles, does it? Wait until the after pics from today’s storm. IMG_8342

We all know that I am an anxious traveler in general – yet travel for work 2-3x a week. So when you add an impending blizzard on top of that, it made for a really stress-filled Sunday last week trying to figure out how to make it to Philly so that I could then fly to Denver on Tuesday. After over 4 hours on hold with the travel company we need to go through for all of our biz travel bookings, I hopped a 6am train on absolutely zero sleep. About 3 hours into the train ride we got the email that said “if you haven’t left yet, stay home” which combined with some severe overtiredness, led to a mini-crying tantrum on the Accela while I tried to figure out if I should continue on to PHL or turn around and get snowed in back in BOS. Thankfully I have a level-headed an well seasoned business traveler Dad to handle my drama in these situations. So Skip recommended to get to Philly where there would be less snow and a hotel with booze. Smart man. He might have said food, but I definitely heard booze. It ended up being a good choice, since Boston got over 26 inches of snow, and Philly got … about an inch. On the bright side, the lack of blizzard in Philly meant we were able to enjoy a nice dinner at IndeBlue with some delicious and VERY much needed cocktails.IMG_8352

Denver got postponed to this week, which is what I’m still currently on hold (90 minutes and counting) to try to find a way to get there eventually. But it meant a full week in Philly. I became an expert Amtrak rider, and opted for the train home Thursday to get in some productive work time without the airport hassle. Because the easy train ride made me less prone to going insane when I got home around 7 on Thursday night and found my car in this less than fortunate situation. 90 sweaty minutes later, I was able to get my car out of the spot enough just to put it right back there – and leave it there until Spring at this point. The snowbanks in South Boston are so high even if you could move your car … you wouldn’t want to do it because you’re going to get smashed into trying to take any of those corners, or smash into someone since the sidewalks are such a mess most people are walking in the street.IMG_8367

I’m starting to think that if two guys came up to me and one said ‘I love you’ and another guy said ‘I have a garage’ … that would be a tough choice or me to have to make. Love is fleeting … a garage is forever … right? The snow will make you crazy like that. So Friday was a work-from-home day, a long day at that. And I was in need of some comfort food Friday night. So I whipped up this chicken pot pie skillet, which I think I need to try to retrace my steps and write the recipe down for it because it was delicious Friday night, and just as good the next two days as leftovers. Watch out Pillsbury Dough Boy, because those are some homemade biscuits on top.IMG_8371

Saturday I hopped a ride with my friend Jacqui as a last minute sub to play singles in Weymouth in a tennis match. What a workout. I was trying to channel my inner Serena and take out a week’s worth of work/travel frustration – so I was grunting and running all over the place. 1100 calories and 18 games later … I came out the winner. And then spent the rest of the day recovering on the couch until grabbing some wine and a fried fluffternutter at Local 149 with my friend Caitlan. Probably double the calories I had burned, but totally worth every bite.

I took a spin class at Rev’d Indoor cycling out in Dedham Sunday morning with my friend Amanda. I met the owner Meg at my friend Fran’s Christmas party back in December. She was dressed like Santa Clause and came out dancing with more energy than I’ve ever seen Santa bust a move with … so I figured if her moves were that good in a fat suit, it would definitely be worth taking a class at her spin studio. And it was a good, sweaty upbeat time. Probably burned off maybe a little more of that Fluffernutter. Last night I brought up my other baked good experiments to a Superbowl party upstairs at Francesca’s. Because I didn’t even have to go outside to get there, I was pretty pumped to go. Those two recipes are going to be coming to the blog in the next few weeks …. maybe while I’m cruising the Caribbean for Valentine’s Day.

And then there was today. You reallllllyyyyy hope the weathermen suck at their job and are just hyping these storms up and then there’d be nothing. But I’m pretty sure today’s storm dropped more than a foot and change. There is also literally NOWHERE to put the snow. This was my walk to try to go shovel out my car again.IMG_8391You can’t put the snow back in the street … the piles are over 4 and a half feet high … so you throw snow on top and it just rolls back down. So pretty much this is the best we can do to make a pathway in front of our house.IMG_8397Anytime someone makes a comment about being jealous of the snow I just want Mortal Kombat style ‘finish them.’ I mean really, if anyone is super interested in experiencing this firsthand, I’ve got a spare bedroom and an extra shovel. So be my guest!

So that’s it … we’re now going on 1 hour and 45 minutes on hold with Amex Travel trying to update this weeks plans. On the bright side, in 8 days I should be in Miami … and now I will be able to get all of my clothes from the dry cleaners which was closed today  so I won’t have to show up to work in sweatpants this week. Silver linings. And booze. That’s what will get me through.