A few months back, I was faced with the dilemma of making David Leibovitz’s Salty Peanut Butter Cookies with Caramel or Alice Medrich’s Salted Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies. Similar not just in name, but in ingredient list and likely outcome, I took the road more-oft traveled and chose the recipe with an accompanying picture, David’s Salty Peanut Butter Cookies with Caramel. For those of you that read the post, you will recall that I was less than thrilled with the outcome. It wasn’t bad – it is a sweet and salty cookie covered in caramel – but, it was a bit too dry and not sweet enough for my taste, and it left me wondering what Alice’s cookie would have been like.

As an aside, why is it that we can only conceive of a recipe being good if it has a scrumptious picture by its side. Surely, there have been some spectacular dishes made with no SLR camera sitting conveniently nearby. It requires a leap of faith, but I dare everyone that reads this post to go into their cookbooks and pick one recipe that does NOT have a recipe accompanying it. Some of my favorite dishes have been those tucked away obscurely into the recesses of my cookbooks, and I never would have discovered them had I been photo-only prejudiced.

Anyway…..

I am much more pleased with this Salted Peanut Butter Toffee Cookie than my previous attempt. It is so soft and yielding, sweet, and the coarse toffee peanut coating gives it a delightful crunch, before you sink into a mound of sweet peanut butter deliciousness.

Enjoy!

Click here for a printable version of the recipe

Salted Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies, Yields 24

Adapted from Pure Desserts

Prep Time: 1 Hour

Baking & Cooling Time: 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 Hours

Total Time: 2 1/2 – 3 1/2 Hours

Ingredients:

1 ½ Cups Flour

½ Tsp. Baking Soda

1 Tsp. Sea Salt

1 Stick Butter, melted

½ Cup Brown Sugar, firmly packed

½ Cup Sugar

1 Egg

1 Tsp. Best Quality Vanilla Extract

1 Cup Chunky Peanut Butter (not unsalted)

¾ Cup Toffee Peanuts, coarsely ground

Preparation:

In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together both sugars and the melted butter. Add the egg, vanilla, and peanut butter, and whisk again until well incorporated. Add the flour mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until fully blended.

Cover the dough and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

After 1 hour, preheat the oven to 350° and prepare your baking sheets by covering with parchment paper. Pour the chopped toffee peanuts into a shallow bowl or dish.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Using about 1 rounded teaspoon amount, mold the dough into 1-1 ½ inch balls. Once completed, roll the cookie balls into the chopped toffee peanuts and press firmly to get the peanut pieces stuck into the dough (this requires quite a bit of pushing and molding).

Arrange the cookies on the baking sheet, about 1-2 inches apart and bake for 16 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and carefully remove the cookies onto a cooking rack (they will be flimsy and slightly doughy still, but they will firm up as they cool).

Let them rest and cool for 10 minutes, pour a big glass of milk, and enjoy!