I decided to try Irvin Lin's "Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Butterscotch Layered Cookies" -- a flavor combination Lin declares as "life-changing." They are butterscotch cookies inset with a disk of chocolate-peanut butter dough; the criss-cross imprint on top hints at the peanut butter inside.
Making both of the doughs is straightforward. For the butterscotch dough, you brown butter on the stove; transfer the browned butter to a stand mixer, add cold butter, and mix until the cold butter melts and the browned butter has cooled; add dark brown sugar followed by eggs and vanilla; and mix in the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder). For the chocolate-peanut butter dough, you beat softened butter and granulated sugar until fluffy; add smooth peanut butter and an egg yolk; and add the dry ingredients (flour, natural cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt).
To assemble the cookies, you take a ball of the butterscotch dough and flatten it into a disk; dip the bottom in turbinado sugar and place it on a baking sheet; brush the disk with a little water; place a ball of chocolate-peanut butter dough on top and flatten it; and make a criss-cross pattern in the chocolate-peanut butter dough with a fork.
The recipe says that you should use a rounded tablespoon of butterscotch dough and a rounded teaspoon of chocolate-peanut butter dough for each cookie. That's roughly a 3:1 ratio, so I used a #24 scoop for the butterscotch dough and a #60 scoop for the peanut-butter dough. I ended up with way too much chocolate-peanut butter dough. I made a batch and a half of both doughs and I was able to make three dozen cookies -- but had enough chocolate-peanut butter batter remaining that I could have topped 20 more. It was so much dough that it seemed like a waste to throw it away, so I made ten cookies that were just chocolate-peanut butter dough, portioned with a #30 scoop.
My first reaction when I tried a freshly-baked cookie was that something seemed very wrong, at least with the chocolate-peanut butter portion of the cookie. The cookies looked fine -- and were pretty close to the photos in the cookbook -- but the chocolate-peanut butter dough didn't seem cooked. It was slightly tacky and if I pressed down on it with my finger, the dough would smoosh and smear. It was so odd and I've never seen anything like it in a cookie before. I double- and triple-checked the recipe to make sure that I hadn't left out anything or made any math errors when I was scaling up the ingredient quantities, but I couldn't find anything wrong.
The strange texture was so disconcerting that I just tossed all of the pure chocolate-peanut butter cookies into the compost. But the cookies with both doughs together tasted fine and I went ahead and brought them into the office the following day. On day two, the cookies had improved substantially. The chocolate-peanut butter dough was still soft and weird, but the butterscotch portion had firmed up a bit and was superchewy. I absolutely loved the satisfying texture and the deep, sweet butterscotch flavor. The turbinado sugar on the bottom of the cookies also added just the slightest crunch. And the combination of butterscotch with chocolate and peanut butter was surprisingly good.
Despite the bizarre texture of the chocolate-peanut butter portion of these cookies, I found myself wanting to go back for another and another. I do want to make these cookies again -- both because they tasted so good and also to see if the texture of my chocolate-peanut butter dough was a fluke. But even if they turn out exactly the same, I'll be happy with them.
Recipe: "Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Butterscotch Layered Cookies" from Marbled, Swirled, and Layered by Irvin Lin.
Making both of the doughs is straightforward. For the butterscotch dough, you brown butter on the stove; transfer the browned butter to a stand mixer, add cold butter, and mix until the cold butter melts and the browned butter has cooled; add dark brown sugar followed by eggs and vanilla; and mix in the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder). For the chocolate-peanut butter dough, you beat softened butter and granulated sugar until fluffy; add smooth peanut butter and an egg yolk; and add the dry ingredients (flour, natural cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt).
To assemble the cookies, you take a ball of the butterscotch dough and flatten it into a disk; dip the bottom in turbinado sugar and place it on a baking sheet; brush the disk with a little water; place a ball of chocolate-peanut butter dough on top and flatten it; and make a criss-cross pattern in the chocolate-peanut butter dough with a fork.
My first reaction when I tried a freshly-baked cookie was that something seemed very wrong, at least with the chocolate-peanut butter portion of the cookie. The cookies looked fine -- and were pretty close to the photos in the cookbook -- but the chocolate-peanut butter dough didn't seem cooked. It was slightly tacky and if I pressed down on it with my finger, the dough would smoosh and smear. It was so odd and I've never seen anything like it in a cookie before. I double- and triple-checked the recipe to make sure that I hadn't left out anything or made any math errors when I was scaling up the ingredient quantities, but I couldn't find anything wrong.
The strange texture was so disconcerting that I just tossed all of the pure chocolate-peanut butter cookies into the compost. But the cookies with both doughs together tasted fine and I went ahead and brought them into the office the following day. On day two, the cookies had improved substantially. The chocolate-peanut butter dough was still soft and weird, but the butterscotch portion had firmed up a bit and was superchewy. I absolutely loved the satisfying texture and the deep, sweet butterscotch flavor. The turbinado sugar on the bottom of the cookies also added just the slightest crunch. And the combination of butterscotch with chocolate and peanut butter was surprisingly good.
Despite the bizarre texture of the chocolate-peanut butter portion of these cookies, I found myself wanting to go back for another and another. I do want to make these cookies again -- both because they tasted so good and also to see if the texture of my chocolate-peanut butter dough was a fluke. But even if they turn out exactly the same, I'll be happy with them.
Recipe: "Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Butterscotch Layered Cookies" from Marbled, Swirled, and Layered by Irvin Lin.
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