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

Secret Ingredient Cookies

Well, it is clearly not a secret anymore.  The secret is out.  These cookies are packed full of these:

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I made these cookies with no plan to share them on the blog.  Shame on me!

But they were so dang good, I had to post these for all to see.

The texture of these cookies is perfection.  I have no other words.

Secret Ingredient Cookies

Makes about 12 cookies (double if you want more)

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp flour

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

3 tbsp butter

1 egg

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup peanut butter Cheerios

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together butter & sugars, then add egg and vanilla.  Mix dry ingredients separately, then mix it all together.  Add in the cereal and chocolate chips last.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Seriously, if you are going to splurge on a cookie (or two), this is worth it!

recipe adapted from Sweet Tooth Sweet Life

Chunky Monkey Banana Bread

This bread started off really healthy. I mean whole wheat flour, applesauce, bananas. A diet friendly sort of thing.

Then these guys crashed the party.



I couldn't turn them away. Look at those faces. I had to make them feel included and wanted. It was the right thing to do.

From then on, things got even crazier when I remembered the peanut butter chips in the pantry.

Oh well, maybe the healthy ingredients will cancel out all the naughty calories from the party crashers.

Regardless, this is an awesome bread. It will make banana bread haters change their way of thinking. It is wholesomely rich without being too sweet. And not too banana-y.

Here's the recipe:

Chunky Monkey Banana Bread
adapted from Cookies and Cups

3 ripe bananas
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup applesauce
1/4 cup egg substitute
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz. bag of mini Reeses PB cups
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Whisk together all dry ingredients. Throw in the mashed banana, applesauce and egg and stir to combine.
Stir in the peanut butter, Reeses and PB chips.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.



Make this bread. If anyone at the office asks what you had for breakfast all you need to say is whole wheat banana bread. It's not a lie. You are just omitting a few details.

No biggie.

By the way, you probably want to let your bread cool before slicing, or this could happen to you:



Oh, yeah.
Happy Halloween, ya'll!

me and my pumpkin

Single Serving Fudge Cake With Peanut Butter Frosting

I eat dessert every day. I usually have some froyo in a cone, but I ran out. So, I was experimenting with a single serve dessert.

I'm sure you all remember my four cookie recipe.

This is kind of like that, except it is for one person. Seriously, if you know someone else is going to be mooching your dessert, don't make this. Or double the recipe. This is the kind of dessert that encourages selfishness.

Although this fudgy cake is decadent and topped with peanut butter frosting it is super diet friendly. There is a secret ingredient. It's pumpkin. Oh. Not so secret anymore. Well, don't worry. This dessert is straightforward chocolate and peanut butter. No pumpkin taste to be found.



Agh! It's so yummy! Ok, I better tell you how to make this so you can get to it.

Single Fudge Cake

3 tbsp devil's food cake mix
2 tbsp canned pumpkin puree
1 1/2 tbsp lite milk (I used almond milk)
*optional-splash of vanilla OR sprinkle of cinnamon (I used cinnamon)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a ramekin or single muffin tin vessel with non-stick spray. Mix all your ingredients and then pour them in your ramekin or muffin tin. Bake for 20 minutes (maybe less if in a muffin tin).

While that is cooking, prepare your frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting

3 tbsp powdered sugar
1 tbsp reduced fat peanut butter (I used Skippy super chunk)
1 tbsp pumpkin puree

Mix this up then pop in the freezer for about 5 minutes or so.

Optional garnishes: sprinkles and sugar free chocolate syrup




You must try this, because I'm not sharing any of mine!

Overnight Oats in a Jar

Don't you hate throwing away the jar of peanut butter? Well, don't do it—make this instead. It is a great way to get the last of your peanut butter out of the jar (without having to stick your face or hands in it).

We all know of my love for breakfast. I made my breakfast for today last night, which I'm pretty sure I've never done before.

Enter overnight oats in a jar.

I read a few healthy living blogs, and all those healthy-fied girls rave about oats in a jar. I don’t know why it took me so long to try them (as I go through lots of jars of peanut butter), but I’m glad I tried them today.

Here’s what you need



1/2 c oats (I used old fashioned, but you can also use quick cooking)
3/4-1 c milk (I used almond, and I also used a full cup)
Dash of cinnamon
Drizzle of honey (about 1/2 tbsp)
Empty peanut butter jar (or almond butter)

Put all these ingredients in the jar, shake it up with the top on (or stir it) and store in the fridge for at least 4 hours. I made mine at 9 p.m. last night and left them in there until 7 this morning. They were awesome!

You can either eat them straight out of the fridge or microwave them. I ate the oats cold and really enjoyed the experience. The honey added just enough sweetness and the cinnamon really went well with the peanut butter. The oats were just the right amount of tender, but still had a slight bite to them.

You can play with this recipe a bit. I looked at probably 5 or 6 different recipes out there and modified it to me. Bananas would be great in this, as would canned pumpkin (perfect for Fall). Next time you have an empty jar of PB, give it a try.



On a completely random and unrelated note—is it mushroom season or something? There are mushrooms popping up overnight all over the grounds of our apartment complex. So far, I’m the only dork crouched outside with a camera! But mushrooms are so cool looking. They look like cartoon characters or something. So as not to waste my nerdy pictures, I’ll share some with you today: