This is a new-to-me cookie that I baked for Christmas and I think its a winner. Chocolate, nuts, espresso powder to bring out the chocolate flavor and mini peanut butter cups round out this chocolate cookie.
The recipe calls for peanut butter chips but when I came across those mini peanut butter cups at Trader Joe’s I decided to use them instead and they turned out great!
You can use an ice cream scoop for really big cookies or use a #24 scoop for medium sized cookies like mine. Also, you can easily make this dough in advance: freeze or refrigerate dough, then bring to room temperature before scooping and baking. Super easy and very delicious. Great with coffee or hot cocoa. Try them for yourself!
You can find the basic recipe here. Start by preheating the oven to 325 degrees and lining a baking sheet with parchment or silpat. Set aside.
Toast the roughly chopped pecans and walnut halves and set aside to cool. In a small bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Melt the butter, six ounces of the chocolate chips and the unsweetened chocolate (that has been chopped into small pieces) in a double boiler. As an alternative, you could do like I did and heat in the microwave on High Power for 30 second intervals, stirring after each 30 seconds until most of the chocolate is completely melted. Remove from microwave and continue to stir until all the chocolate is melted and smooth. Set aside to cool for 15 minutes.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the eggs, espresso powder and vanilla until combined. Beat in the sugar until well combined and thickened, around 2 minutes.
Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until just combined.
Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the toasted cooled nuts, mini peanut butter cups and remaining chocolate chips. You can mix them with 1 tablespoon of flour before folding into the dough but I didn’t do this and it turned out fine.
Scoop dough onto prepared baking sheet leaving 2 inches between each dough ball.
Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are firm but the centers are still slightly undone. Let cookies cool slightly on baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
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