The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012: Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cookies

I may have mentioned before, but I participated in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap again this year.  Such fun!  So, I'm delaying What I Ate Wednesday until later today, so I can tell you all about this!

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The way it works is if you have a blog, you sign up with the swap and they send you 3 matches.  You kind of keep it on the downlow for a bit.  Then you send your 3 matches a dozen cookies each.  There are a ton of participants and it is all across the U.S.

You will also receive a dozen cookies from 3 other bloggers, as well.  That's the fun part!  You get to sample someone else's cookies and share them with family and friends.

Then, everyone posts their recipes and we all link up to like a gazillion other recipes.  It's fun to browse through there and see what everyone comes up with.

This year proceeds go to Cookies for Kids' Cancer and they sent me an awesome cookie spatula!  Yay :)

So, for my recipe this year, I had one combination on my mind: peanut butter and chocolate.  I figured  I should swirl them together for maximum enjoyment.

This recipe makes a TON of cookies...so you might want to scale it down if you are not feeding a small army.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cookies

makes 5-6 dozen (for real)

Chocolate Cookie Dough

12 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Beat melted butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Cool slightly and beat in egg and egg yolk. Beat in vanilla.

Combine the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Slowly beat into the butter and sugar mixture until well blended. 

Roll out the dough on plastic wrap that has been sprayed with oil until it makes a giant rectangle the size of your baking sheet.  No actual measurements from this gal!

Make your peanut butter dough.

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

5 cups all-purpose flour

Combine butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla.  Add flour, baking soda and salt. 

Plop about 2/3 of the dough on top of the rolled out chocolate dough and roll it over it until even and smooth.  You will have extra peanut butter cookie dough (you're welcome), so you can make those, too or freeze the dough.

Roll the plastic wrap up a bit and use it as a guide to carefully roll your two doughs into a giant log.  I had to actually cut down the middle and separate the cookie logs, because they were so large.  Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes.  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and slice your cookies into about 1/4" slices.

Lay on parchment paper and bake for 11-12 minutes.  Cool on a cookie rack.

Chocolate cookie dough recipe adapted from About.com

Peanut butter cookie dough recipe adapted from All Recipes

cookies all ready to go to my recipients ;)

I love participating in this online cookie swap and meeting other bloggers!  So fun :)

Thanks so much to Love & Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen for hosting!

Also, I gotta give a shout out to the awesome bloggers whose cookies I received:

Amber from Caleigh's Kitchen made some killer chocolate buckeye cookies.  Holy moly.

Mal from The Chic Geek sent me some scrumptious cinnamon roll palmiers :)

My third cookie shipper got delayed, because she had the flu.  That's no fun :(  I'll update this once I receive hers.

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My cookies from last year's swap: Crispy Coconut Almond Cookies