Peanut Butter & Medjool Date Chocolate Chip Cookies
These peanut butter & medjool date chocolate chip cookies have a crisp & chewy texture and are made with brown butter & good quality chocolate, for maximum flavour!
Servings: 13 Cookies
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Saucepan
- Cookie Scoop
- Baking Trays
- Large Circular Cutter
Ingredients
- 175 g Unsalted Butter
- 80 g Peanut Butter (See Notes)
- 150 g Dark Brown Sugar
- 125 g Caster Sugar
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 Large Eggs (See Notes)
- 260 g Plain Flour
- 10 g Cornflour
- ¾ tsp Baking Powder
- ¾ tsp Bicarbonate Of Soda
- ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ tsp Table Salt
- 180 g Dark Chocolate (54% Or 72% Is Best!)
- 180 g Pitted Medjool Dates (See Notes)
- Sea Salt (To Finish)
Instructions
Cookie Dough
- Start by browning 100g of the butter. To do this, chop the butter into evenly sized pieces then place into a medium saucepan. Place over a medium heat & allow to melt, stirring regularly with a spatula. Keep cooking, until the butter starts to foam, smells nutty & you can see that the milk solids in the bottom of the pan have turned golden brown.
- Once the butter has browned, transfer it to a bowl then leave to cool to room temperature. In the meantime, chop the remaining 75g of butter into small pieces & leave to soften at room temperature.The brown butter should take around 30 minutes to cool.
- Next, add both of the butters, the peanut butter, dark brown sugar, caster sugar & vanilla extract to the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached. Beat on a medium speed for 1-2 minutes, until combined.Be careful not to over mix the butter & sugar, we don’t want to add too much air into the cookie dough as this will affect the baked cookies.
- In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs together then slowly pour into the butter, with the mixer running on medium speed. Stop mixing once the eggs are just incorporated.
- Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt & cinnamon into a separate mixing bowl, whisk to combine then add into the butter. Mix on a low speed until just combined.Don't worry if there's a few streaks of flour at this point as they will be incorporated when we mix in the chocolate.
- Next, cut the dates into 2 cm chunks then add into the cookie dough. Roughly chop up 120 grams of the dark chocolate then add into the cookie dough as well.
- Using a spatula, stir the dates & chocolate into the cookie dough then chill in the fridge for 30 minutes, so that it can firm up slightly.Make sure that the dates & chocolate are evenly incorporated throughout the cookie dough!
- Whilst the cookie dough is chilling, chop the remaining 60 grams of dark chocolate into 13 evenly sized chunks. Each chunk should be 1-2cm wide.
Shaping
- Using a cookie scoop (or a spoon), portion the chilled cookie dough into 13 equally sized portions. Each should weigh around 90 grams.
- With your hands, roll a portion of cookie dough into a ball then press a dark chocolate chunk into the top. Repeat with the remaining dough.
- Place the balls of cookie dough into an airtight container & refrigerate for 3-4 hours until the dough has firmed up.Alternatively, refrigerate the cookies overnight then let them sit out at room temperature for 20 minutes before baking. This helps them spread out properly.
Baking
- The next day, preheat an oven to 175°c/155°c fan (350°f/311°f).
- Place 3-4 balls of cookie dough onto a lined baking tray, making sure that there’s plenty of room between them.
- Bake the cookies for 10 minutes then open your oven door, lift up the baking tray inside the oven by a few inches then let it drop down against the oven rack. Use enough force so that the cookie starts to deflate. (This is the “Pan Banging” method.)
- Bake for a further 2 minutes then repeat the pan banging process.
- Bake for another 2 minutes (bringing the total bake time to 14 minutes) then remove from the oven. Once baked, the cookies' edges will be golden brown but the middles will still be soft.
- Using a large, round cookie cutter, gently scoot each cookie into a perfect round shape.
- Sprinkle each cookie lightly with sea salt then leave on the tray, to cool completely.
- Repeat the cooking process with the remaining cookies, baking 3-4 cookies at a time.
Notes
1. Cooking In An Aga – Bake the cookies in the baking oven on the bottom set of runners. Use the boiling plate to brown the butter.
2. Storage – Kept in an airtight container, these cookies will stay fresh for up to 3 days.
3. Eggs - You'll need large eggs for this recipe. Each one should weigh around 50 grams out of the shell. Make sure to use room temperature eggs.
4. Dates - For the best flavour & texture, you'll need to use Medjool dates. You can get these in most supermarkets. The weight used for this recipe is the pitted weight, so you'll need to weigh the dates after you've removed the pits. For 180 grams, you'll need around 10 large Medjool dates.
5. Chocolate - When making cookies, it’s best to use bars of chocolate that have been roughly chopped as apposed to chocolate chips. Chocolate chips won’t melt properly & you won’t get the molten pools of chocolate that can be achieved with chopped chocolate.
6. Peanut Butter - Using a good quality smooth peanut butter is best for these cookies. I used ManiLife deep roasted peanut butter. Feel free to use crunchy peanut butter if you'd prefer.
7. The Pan Banging Method – The way we bake these cookies, is by using a technique called “Pan Banging”. This was created by Sarah Kieffer (The Vanilla Bean Blog) & is used in this recipe to create pools of melted chocolate & to give the cookies a crinkled texture.
8. Chilling - Normally I like to chill my cookie dough overnight before baking, however peanut butter cookie dough won't spread out enough if we do this. To get around this, we only chill them for a few hours or chill them overnight then let them sit at room temperature for 20 minutes before baking.