Well, really, these cookies are fantastic any time. Not just for Thanksgiving. Now is a good time. The cookies are soft, squishy, chewy, and loaded with peanut butter and chocolate chips. They almost melt in your mouth. Surprisingly, the cookies are not loaded with butter. Instead, the cookies get their fat and chew from canola oil with a little assistance from peanut butter. Unfortunately, like peanut butter cups, the cookies also are addictive, so I limit the amount I make to a small batch. If you want more than 12-15 cookies, you can double the recipe. The cookie can be made in a conventional oven or air fryer. These really are great cookies for sharing, even though you'll be tempted to hoard and eat all of them yourself. So, think about including the cookies in your Thanksgiving cookie baking binge. The cookies are great for people who don't like pumpkin pie and just want a great cookie to eat with or without their ice cream. Consider making these cookies, too, if you plan to do any outdoor gatherings with friends, neighbors, or family. The cookies are easy to bag/wrap up and eat while standing at an appropriate social distance. And who knows? Chocolate Peanut Butter Chewies may make a tough time a little more memorable in a positive way. Twenty years from now, what if someone says, "yeah, my mother, grandmother, neighbor, etc., made these fantastic chocolate peanut butter chewy cookies for our pandemic Thanksgiving. She tossed them to us from a social distance to eat with our hot cocoa/ate all of them in front of us on Zoom but did send us the recipe. Now I make them for my...." The cookies are well worth making, incredibly good, and are likely to become a favorite.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Chewies -- Makes 12-15
1/4 cup of canola oil
1 egg
1/3 cup of cocoa powder
3/4 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
1/3 cup of peanut butter
1 1/4 cup of flour
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of peanut butter chips
1/2 cup of chocolate chips
In a medium bowl or measure, combine thoroughly the oil, egg, cocoa powder, sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, and peanut butter. Stir in the flour, baking soda, and salt until blended. Fold in the peanut butter chips and chocolate chips. Refrigerate the batter for at least an hour (even longer is better) for better cookies. If you're desperate for a cookie fix, go ahead and bake them, but they won't be quite as good as if you waited. Your choice.
Conventional Oven: When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line cookie sheets with baking parchment paper. Drop about two tablespoons of dough for each cookie on the prepared baking sheet, spacing the cookies a couple of inches apart. Flatten the cookies slightly (just enough so they don't roll off the baking sheet, which would be a bad thing--trust me, it happens). Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. They won't look completely baked. Pull the cookies out of the oven and let them sit on their cookie sheet for a few minutes before removing them to cool completely or at least to cool enough so you won't burn your mouth eating them. I advise having a glass of cold milk standing by, just in case.
Air Fryer: If you want to bake the cookies in the air fryer, prepare squares of baking parchment large enough to just fit in your air fryer basket. Drop two mounds of cookie dough (each about two tablespoons) on each parchment square. Flatten the mounds slightly, place the cookies on their parchment into the air fryer basket, and cook them at 320 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Remove the cookies and let them cool and firm up while you put in another batch, repeating the cooking process. You needn't bake all the cookies at once. Just cook as many as you want and stash the remaining dough, well wrapped, back in the refrigerator for another day.
