Revenge Gone Wrong: Salted Brown Butter, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pinterest. Facebook. Instagram. Friendster. If they’re not made for flame wars and trolls, they’re made for posting photos of food. Turns out there’s a Food Porn Daily website made just for people to Creme Fraiche all over themselves (South Park. NSFW). This website isn’t much different. I talk about food. My meals today have been supplemented by cookies I made purely to get back at a friend for posting a photo of delicious sounding cookies. Guess what? The joke’s on me.

The cookies are delicious. I’ve had 9 in the past 24 hours. That’s not healthy. I’ll tell you why. There’s nothing healthy about these cookies. The amount of butter, sugar and chocolate chips in these is something to behold. But adding salt to them? That was my downfall. Salty and sweet mingled together in cookie form? It’s all I can do to not go back to the plate and have another one. I can feel the stomach ache surfacing that only sugar can create.

So, much like The Ring, I’m passing this on to the next person. It’s on your head now. The original recipe came from The Cooking Actress. I didn’t have plain Greek yogurt, so I used honey-flavored Greek yogurt instead. There’s no noticeable difference, but I’m guessing a cherry-flavored Greek yogurt would make these cookies even more insane.

Salted Brown Butter, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt plus more for sprinkling
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup (one whole stick) unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup peanut butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp. plain Greek yogurt
• 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a small saucepan melt the butter over medium heat and whisk constantly as it foams and browns (3 minutes). Immediately remove from heat and pour into a large bowl. Allow to cool for a few minutes. Using a mixer beat the butter and peanut butter together. Beat the sugars into the butters until fully incorporated. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and yogurt. On low speed, add the dry ingredients into the liquid ingredients. Gently stir in the chocolate chips. Allow to chill for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Using a cookie scoop, scoop cookies onto ungreased cookie sheets (or ones lined with a silpat). Leave space in between as the cookies will spread. Using a fork, lightly press onto the top of each cookie in a criss-cross pattern and sprinkle the tops the remaining kosher salt. Bake 8-9 minutes, until the cookies have spread and the edges begin to crisp. They will still look underdone. Remove from the oven and cool on the sheet for 5 minutes, then move to a cooling rack.

The size of the cookie scoop I used made 2 dozen cookies.

Good Enough To Give You Diabetes: Nutella Swirl Pound Cake

I don’t have much to say about this recipe other than it’s delicious. Katie has a particular weakness for Nutella, so when I see an interesting recipe I bookmark it and eventually treat her to a bit of baking.

The recipe originally came from Food & Wine, but I found it on the Chicago Foodies website.

If you want to make it extra sugary to guarantee your own health downfall, and possible stomach ache, just do what I did and accidentally boost the 1 1/4 cups of sugar up to 1 1/2. It makes the crust extra crispy and your teeth extra tingly.

Nutella Swirl Pound Cake

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• One 13-ounce jar Nutella

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease a 9″x5″ loaf pan. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.

2. In a separate large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a mixer. Make sure your eggs are at room temperature to ensure your cake rises properly. Gradually add in each egg, and then the vanilla, until fully incorporated.
3. With your mixer on low, add in the dry ingredients to the wet little by little.
4. Spray or butter your pan. Pour in 1/3 of your batter. Spread with 1/2 of the jar of Nutella. Now, pour over 1/3 more of the batter. Top with the rest of the Nutella. Finish off with the rest of your batter.
5. Before baking, lightly swirl through the pan with a butter knife once or twice. Bake for about an hour and ten minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

Allow the cake to cool thoroughly before serving. I know it’s tempting to dig into warm Nutella, but you will have a runny mess if you cut into the cake immediately. Serve for dessert with ice cream or enjoy with a cup of coffee for breakfast. Nutella is a healthy breakfast food, right?

Episode 8: Gods, Peanut Butter & Bagels

The most opinionated, least researched show about Chicago, her suburbs, and her culture.

This week, can Mike & Katie convince themselves that anything involving the words peanut butter and cream cheese is healthy? Could it be true? Did out mothers like Gale Gand’s delicious Tru edibles? We announce the next film in the Two Bites In Suburbia Dinner Series. All this, and get your breakfast bagel fix in easy to swallow cracker form! This is episode 8 of Two Bites in Suburbia, and the future is now!

Links

• Two Bites in Suburbia Movie Series: God of Cookery

• Bacon, Egg & Cheese Combos

• Tru

• Mother’s Day @ Tru

• Peanut Butter Cookie Pie

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