Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies, or Countdown to 40 Giveaway - I'm 39 7/12 years old!

Happy Pre-Birthday.
To me.
Damnit.

I'm turning 40 in five months. I'll be honest with you and say I'm a little weirded out by this one. I'm THAT person who just loves birthdays. But this one is taking some getting used to...although I just heard 40 is the new 30.

So, to get into the groove, I'm starting the birthday celebration NOW. In my 30's.

I'll be giving something away each month before my December 7, 2010 birthday.

And don't I know how to get this party started? Yes, by buying myself this cool serving tray at Crate & Barrel. Only $9.95! I'm frugal and 39 7/12!

For the "5 month" countdown, I'm giving away a $39 7/12 Amazon gift card to one lucky winner! ($39.58 US Dollar gift certificate to Amazon.com) To enter, just leave a comment (if you aren't connected to a blog, leave your email address). Deadline is Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at midnight PDT. **Updated: Contest is closed. Congrats to Vicki #8 who won!**

Here are 39 7/12 peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!

Recipe:
I've made these Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk cookies before, but they are a true favorite. This time, I used Cadbury Dark Chocolate Chips that my cousin brought back from a trip to Ireland.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk cookies (adapted from Everyday Food - Martha Stewart empire)

My printable recipe here

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or chunky) (I used Jif smooth. I really like the smooth PB for this recipe)
4 tablespoons ( 1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar (I've made it with both light and dark brown sugar)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, cut into chunks (I've used Nestle chips, chunks and Cadbury dark chocolate chips...all with delicious results!!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda; set aside. With a Kitchen Aid and paddle, beat peanut butter, butter, and sugars until light and fluffy...about 3 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat until smooth. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture, beating just until combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.
2. Drop dough by heaping tablespoons, 1 inch apart, onto two large baking sheets. I used half-sheet pans and a Silpat or parchment paper. Bake until golden, 13 to 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool.

Peanut Butter Coffee Cake

I wish I was there when the first person took a few peanuts of out their shell and smashed them up. I would have screamed, "Awesome!"

Peanut butter is just so comforting. I love it.

And what's as great as peanut butter? The Coffee Cake (or coffeecake - space or no space? I've see it both ways all the time)

Grammar aside, I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Coffee Cake on the Suite101.com website.

I got this cute Hello Kitty figurine from one of those vending machines that 7 year olds love. $1 in quarters gets you one of 6 different figurines - "collect them all" the machine screams. I'm sure this guitar playin' Hello Kitty likes peanut butter too.

The batter has flour, brown sugar, and peanut butter...and the topping is flour, brown sugar, peanut butter, chocolate chips and butter. Double peanut butter!

I thought the cake is a little salty...it has both peanut butter and a bit of salt. I think I would drop the additional salt in the batter. Note: I don't use much salt in my diet so I'm more sensitive to the flavor, so this might not be true for you. Also, I used Skippy creamy peanut butter and this jar might have more salt than yours.

Overall, excellent reviews at the library. Everyone loves peanut butter and coffee cake...and you probably have all the ingredients in the house. Make it soon!

Recipe:
Peanut Butter Coffee Cake

National Chocolate Chip Day - May 15!

Happy National Chocolate Chip Day!

I usually only hear about food related days after the fact...but today, I saw that it was National Chocolate Chip day and hit it!

These are Dorie Greenspan's Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters
(found on page 73 of Dorie's fantastic book, Baking: From My Home to Yours)

They are truly one of my favorite cookies ever! And they are one of Lee's favorites so I made them as a parting baked good to Racheal and Lee (with two bags of frozen cookies are now in the freezer).

I'm running out the door to head to Dulles! See you back home in Los Angeles soon!

Proceed with Caution has the recipe posted here when it was her choice for Tuesdays with Dorie.

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk Cookies (Everyday Food)

Peanut Butter and Chocolate.
Best friends forever.

I made these simple Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk Cookies (from Everyday Food) last night for a peanut butter fix.

I enjoyed them a lot because they were, well, fluffy! You know how regular peanut butter cookies (with the criss-cross) are sometimes crispy? Well, these were little balls of baked peanut butter goodness. My co-workers and I ate them all on the first day...so I never know how things are "the second day."

Simple ingredients: flour, baking soda, peanut butter (I used Skippy smooth), butter, dark brown sugar, regular sugar, eggs, vanilla and semi-sweet chocolate chunks (I used chocolate chips).

The recipe says it makes 36 cookies, but I made them small (with my cookie scoop) and got 71 cookies! Yes, 71 cookies of goodness! Here is the recipe from Martha Stewart's website!

Monkey Munch or Chex's Muddy Buddies

Monkey Munch or Chex's Muddy Buddies
One Delicious Bowl of Goodness

For my last three baking endeavors, my oven has been either (1) giving me attitude or (2) crying out for help. I turn it on, it doesn't heat up for a long time or gets stuck at 250-275 F until I put it on broil to "wake it up." Once, it got up to 350 right away and then fell back to 250 within 20 minutes. Perhaps this is why my little 4" Devil's Food cakes took 45 minutes to cook! Sigh.

So, until the Southern California Gas comes out to calibrate the oven and check it out (such a great free service...and I just hope I don't need a new oven like Madam Chow), I'm going to try to make "short bake" items such as cookies and no-bake items such as this crazy yummy Monkey Munch or Muddy Buddies.

I doled them out in 3 dozen nut & party cups to bring to work.
(By the way, you can get a boatload of these sooo cheap at Smart & Final (sorry, S&F are only in CA, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico)

Jon and Kate Plus 8 make this on their show and "I'm-getting-really-tired-of-you-but-your-kids-are-so-damn-cute-I-keep-watching-the-show-with-you-on-MUTE" Kate calls it Monkey Munch.

Here is the easy, simple Muddy Buddies recipe from the Chex's website.

So easy! Melt 1 cup chips, 1/2 c peanut butter, 1/2 stick butter in the microwave. Stir til smooth then add 1 t vanilla.

9 cups Chex Mix (I used Rice Chex). Mix the melted mixture with the cereal then pop it into large ziploc bags with powdered sugar. Shake and spread out on a cookie sheet. And that's it! It would be a lot of fun to make with kids as they get to shake, shake, shake and then eat, eat, eat! I'm going to make this with my niece and nephews real soon.

Monkey Munch. Muddy Buddies. Or even Monkey Buddies. Whatever the name, I could eat a gallon of this stuff. Make it in a quick minute! Here's the recipe!