Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Spirals

Happy Weekend! Today I not only want to share a super yummy recipe, but I also want to share a new website I found that I absolutely love, supercook.com. It is an awesome recipe search engine where you enter in what ingredients you have on hand, and which ones to exclude (for example if you just ran out of milk) and then it searches for recipes based on those ingredients. Seriously, try it out... it rocks! So, I had five egg yolks left over from a failed attempt at making divinity candy, when I put egg yolk into supercook's search engine I got back a BUNCH of recipes. I chose one for a basic sugar cookie, and from there I got creative. Recently, I was perusing one of my fave blogs, "the girl who ate everything" and saw her recipe for cinnamon roll cookies. It's made by rolling out sugar cookie dough and sprinkling it with cinnamon sugar, rolling it up, and topping with a delicious looking cream cheese drizzle. I didn't have any cream cheese on hand, but I was inspired by the idea of filling the dough and rolling it up. I chose to use my sugar cookie dough to make peanut butter chocolate chip spirals. It was pretty much an experiment, but oh man, it turned out well! Einstein would be proud... actually he probably wouldn't be... but he would be enjoying a delicious cookie... anywho, I digress. These cookies turned out deliciously! They are a little strange shaped because I didn't chill the dough long enough so when I cut my slices it smooshed down. I guess patience really is a virtue... and one that I don't have... Next time I am going to slice them into bigger, thicker slices (like the ones on girl who ate everything), and i will stick them back in the fridge if the dough is too soft. That being said, what these cookies lack in the looks department, they make up for in the flavor department! They are sugary and peanut buttery and chocolatey and good! I hope you like them too, and don't repeat my mistakes.... it really is worth it to wait for the dough to chill a longer time... cause pretty cookies are fun! Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Spirals

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups sifted flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 large eggs, or 4 egg yolks

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Sift together 1 1/2 cups of flour with baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, beat butter until light and creamy, gradually adding sugar.

Beat in egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add milk and vanilla.

With mixer on lowest speed, gradually add the sifted flour mixture and enough of the remaining 1 1/4 cups flour to make a workable dough.

Chill the dough for at least 2 hours or for up to 24 hours.

When the dough is chilled, put dough onto a big piece of plastic wrap, roll into a rectangle about 1/4" thick.

Melt chocolate chips ( I used the microwave). Using a rubber spatula, spread chocolate over cookie dough rectangle.

Warm peanut butter in microwave for about 20 seconds, until it is a bit liquidy and spreadable. Spread peanut butter over chocolate.

This part is a bit tricky... roll dough up into a log shape. The dough gets tougher to roll as it warms up so try to do this part quickly. Mine obviously was not a perfect log and I kind of had to piece it together in some places... but it still tasted good!

Freeze dough for about an hour or until solid enough to cut.

Using a very sharp knife cut dough into 1/2 inch slices (I cut mine a lot thinner but wish I had made them bigger) and place on parchment paper lined cookie sheets about 1 inch apart. Bake in a preheated 400°F oven for 9 or 10 minutes or until cookies are lightly golden.

If desired, top with a drizzle of melted chocolate. Yum!