Chocolate Peanut Butter Marble Cookies

I asked my husband to pick which cookies to make this week. I did a search for cookies on Foodgawker and handed him the laptop. It’s interesting to see what he comes up with. For once, he didn’t pick a single chocolate chip cookie recipe, so I think he’s expanding his cookie horizons. He picked several cookies, including the Doctor Who Weeping Angel Cookies. If you are a Doctor Who fan you know what I am talking about. That episode freaked me out and I’m certainly not making those! He came up with a few chocolate peanut butter cookies and these looked really good. Plus I could make them in advance, always a bonus.

You make two types of dough, but you make them in the same bowl so there aren’t too many dishes to wash. You refrigerate the dough and then roll them out and manipulate the dough to make a nice marbled effect. I don’t have the best luck rolling out dough to resemble anything close to a rectangle, so I rolled out the first half of the dough like directed in the recipe and the second half I just took bits of the two doughs and pieced them together and tried to swirl them from there. The two methods created different, but both very nice, marble effects. So shape the dough in any way that works for you.

I made these cookies over a couple of days: make the dough the first day, shape the second, and bake the third. They don’t need to take that long but they worked out well as it only took me a little time each day. This makes a lot of cookies, 5 dozen plus and one nice heart-shaped one for my husband!

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 2/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 ounce semi-sweet chocolate, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Make the peanut butter dough: in a large mixer bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, egg, and salt and mix until well combined. Add the flour and baking powder to the butter mixture and mix until a uniform dough is formed. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for two hours.

Make the chocolate dough: In the same mixer bowl cream together the butter, sugar, and melted chocolate until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla, egg, and salt and mix until well combined. Add the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder and mix until a uniform dough is formed. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for two hours.

Roll each of the chilled doughs out to 1/4 inch thick rectangle. Cut each rectangle in half. Place the chocolate dough on top of the peanut butter dough and fold the dough in half and then in half again. Flatten the dough, roll into a log, fold the dough in half and flatten again. Roll the dough into a tight log, wrap with plastic and chill for at least two hours or as many as three days. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Slice the dough into 1/4″ thick slices and place them 1 inch apart on the prepared sheets. Bake for 8 – 12 minutes, or until the centers of the cookies are firm and the bottom of the cookie is golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Evil Shenanigans