Soft and chewy peanut butter-y cookies with a stick of chocolate running across the center
Satisfyingly rich with peanut butter and intense bites of chocolate concentrated in the center
This adaptation of Jesse Sheehan's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies by skips the sugar coating and chocolate chips in favor of a single chocolate baton. If you don't have chocolate batons, you can use a square or chunk of any chocolate you like. A Hershey's kiss would be traditional for a peanut butter blossom cookie!
The recipe also calls for pressing the cookies with a spatula to flatten, but instead I've used the pan-banging method to startle them into falling, which seems to lock in the edges at the same time. The result is an evenly thick cookie with slight crisp ridges on the edges.
Make the cookie dough
In a stand mixer, beat 1 1/2 sticks melted butter, 250g brown sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp baking powder, and 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt until lightened and fully mixed.
Mix in 50g vegetable oil and 1 tbsp vanilla.
Mix in 1 egg and 2 yolks.
Mix in 200g peanut butter (not "natural", but chunky or smooth is fine).
Add 260g bread flour all at once. Mix to begin combining, then finish by hand with a spatula.
Chill dough overnight.
Bake the cookies
Preheat the over to 375°.
Form dough in 45g balls. Arrange 6-8 cookies on a baking sheet. Leave enough space for the cookies to spread while baking.
Bake the cookies for a total of 12-14 minutes. After 6 minutes, remove the pan from the oven and bang the cookies on the stove. Place a chocolate baton on each cookie and return to the oven. Bang the cookies again every ~3 minutes until done.
Remove the cookies when they are just beginning to brown near the edges, and appear cooked in the center.
Notes
OK maybe I'm just weird. But I really enjoy that I can control my chocolate bites and eat them when I choose (as opposed to having them dispersed throughout the cookie, like with chips). It's also kind of fun visually to have the stick of chocolate in the center.
You can add the chocolate batons at any point. If you put them in at the beginning of baking, they will break up more. On the opposite end of the spectrum you can wait to add them all the way until the cookies are done and out of the oven. The residual heat will warm the chocolate so it melds into the cookie a bit, but the chocolate will maintain its pristine baton shape. See the difference in these photos!
If you put the chocolate on before baking, they will not fit over the cookie! Just go with it; they'll spread.
It's worth noting these cookies were very soft and delicate. I don't think they would hold up well carried around in a ziploc bag, for instance.
I think it would be cute with a couple whole peanuts pressed in as well.
No cookie scoot needed; they came out round on their own.
If you aren't familiar with the pan-banging cookie method, check out the original pan-banging cookie recipe.