Were you the cool kid who put potato chips on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I bet you were! There’s just something great about the mix of the sweet jam and the salty chips…not to mention a nice, satisfying crunch every bite would create.
However, if you’re thinking – what the heck!? Chips and PB&J? Who ARE you?! I hope you take second to gather yourself, and then read on. These are cookies that bring the best of the sweet and salty worlds together and I sincerely believe you’ll like them. I made them over Easter and my sample group of friends and family (who are extremely blunt) told me they were very tasty. I even doubled checked with a few to be sure they weren’t ‘just being nice’. I wouldn’t dare blog about a recipe unless it would be delicious for YOU to try!
When the results were in – these were a winner. They’re not hard to make, but are more fun when you have sous chefs or visitors to chat with while making. You’ll see what I mean.
This is a recipe from a blog I LOVE to read – Spoon Fork Bacon. They have it all with great pictures, tasty recipes and my kind of humor.
Ok – lets get to the cookies:
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 3/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup creamy peanut butter (I don’t think crunchy would work as well for baking, but if you’re a rebel, give it a go!)
- 1 egg white, lightly beaten
- 2 cups potato chips, crushed (pop the chips into a Ziplic and pound them onto the counter top or roll on top of them with a rolling pin. Or find other demolition possibilities.)
- ½ cup jam of your choice (I used a classic [in my opinion] – strawberry. Go with your favorite PB&J jam flavor and I’m sure it’ll be an excellent choice.)
How to Make:
Preheat your oven to 375. Don’t forget this step! (We all know I tend to do that. Oopie.)
Grab your hand mixer (if you’re a sad person like me) or a stand mixer (if you’re one of THOSE people…yes, yes we know I want to BE one of THOSE people…) and cream your butter. I highly recommend you don’t attempt to cream together very cold butter. That would be a rookie mistake right?!? Who does that?! I’m sure you see where this is going…don’t be like me. Work with warm, room temp butter or if needed, pop it into the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up. Butter creams so much better when it’s not cold. (Your butter should not be clumpy like my cold butter in the pic below. I did microwave it a bit after this pic and it actually ‘creamed’ instead of ‘clumped’ after that.)
Add in both of your sugars and cream those in with the butter (I was a space cadet and just added the white sugar…as you’ll see in the pictures. Don’t worry, I did eventually come to my senses and add in the brown sugar. But avoid this moment by just adding in both at the right moment.) This will take you approximately 3 minutes to cream everything together.
Add in the 1 whole egg (save the 1 egg white for later) and vanilla. Keep up the mixing so these two new ingredients are thoroughly mixed in there.
Grab yourself another bowl and “sift together” (Those are the words of gals on Spoon Fork Bacon. I don’t sift due to lack of sifter and just mixed in all ingredients like normal. If you want authentic cookies as SFB describes…sift your little heart out.) your flour, baking soda and salt.
Once it’s all mixed together well – add it into your other ingredients and stir it all up to combine, just right. At this point add the PB and make sure it’s thoroughly mixed in. You don’t want any cookies to not have the proper PB taste…so mix well people!
Now, the fun part! Find a little bowl for your egg white – this will be station #2. Put your crushed chips out on a cutting board or a big plate – this will be station #3. Spray your cookie sheet with some Pam and lay it nearby – this will be station #4. Ready?
Roll your dough into a ball (station #1)…
…drop into the egg white (station #2)… [ignore the terrible pic…I’m posting just to show what station #2 looks like]
…then pull it out and roll it in potato chips (station #3) … (the below pic is like ‘Where’s Waldo’ except it’s ‘Where’s the Cookie’?)
then place it on your baking sheet (station #4). Rinse, repeat. Oh wait, that’s something else. You know what I mean…repeat until you have 12-15 balls on your baking sheet. Make sure they’re all evenly spaced (laying them in a 3×4 or 3×5 pattern works best I think).
Now for the finishing touch – find your pinkie finger…the left one…or the right one…or your Mom’s…doesn’t matter. Gently press the pinkie into the center of each cookie ball. Now, they’re oven ready!
Put them in the oven for 12-15 minutes. With the egg white coating, you’ll know they’re done when they start to get that golden hue on top. When I pulled out my first batch, the little pinkie prints hadn’t remained as imprinted as I would have liked, so I just went through and gently pressed each one back down again. No fear if this happens to you too!
Place the cookies on a cooling rack or cutting board until they’re cooled completely.
Once they have, NOW is the time for the jam! Fill each cookie with a small amount of jam, just enough to fill up the pinkie indent. Let them sit with their jam filled tops for about an hour, so they can ‘set’ as best as they can. We covered them in Saran wrap (as these were made the night before Easter) and the jam sticks just a bit to the top of the plastic. But make sure to leave them out for about an hour before wrapping – that should help.
Fill up a glass of milk…grab a cookie (or two!) and enjoy the goodness of sweet/salty heaven. 🙂
Spatulas & Buttons 