Salted Chocolate-Pretzel Peanut Butter Cookies

I had a really tough time deciding which recipe to post this week.  Mainly because this will be my last post for a while :(  I’ll be out of the country for work the next few months, and won’t have much of an online presence.  But, the good news is that I’ll be back in the beginning of winter and hope to go bonkers with holiday recipes!

So, let me leave you with something sweet (although I found a killer greens & noodles recipe, made some surprisingly good tofu quiche, a parsley dressing, and an array of delicious nut butters.  I’ve been in cooking overdrive to take advantage of every last minute, and freezing some things for Kevin while he fends for himself :P).  I saw these cookies on Ashlae’s vegan friendly blog and immediately stuck them on my “to make” list.  I mean, look at that name.  She had me at salted chocolate-pretzel.

Pulverize pretzels in the food processor.  (I’m such a sucker for alliteration)

The pretzel flavor is present, but subtle.

The recipe calls for sucanat.  This sweetener is pricier than regular refined sugars, but has a number of health benefits.   It’s similar to turbinado, but the sugar cane juice is heated to a syrup, then hand-paddled to dry. It has all of its natural molasses, so contains a good amount of iron, B6, calcium, and potassium.  And it smells amazing. Very smoky, deep and sweet.

Typical wet meets dry ingredients.

I do enjoy my stand mixer.

Another perk of vegan baking … eating the dough without raw egg worries :)

Scoop

Cross-hatch with fork

Top with coarse sea salt.

Bake

I really love making cookies.  Assembly line prepping really calls to my inner organization child.  Just had a flash-back to my summer working on the line in a factory.  It actually wasn’t completely terrible.  Although making cookies is way more fun than assembling make-up.

These cookies have great peanut-butter flavor, enhanced by the chocolate and salt.  I brought them to our friends’ place for an after-dinner sweet, and they were a hit.  They’re not moist, but I really like the textured crumble.  We had them with rum, not milk, so don’t worry that you’ll need to dunk these to enjoy them :)

Salted Chocolate-Pretzel Peanut Butter Cookies

I followed Ashlae’s recipe without adaptation, but just a couple of notes.  I used Crisco for the shortening and regular-size chocolate chips.  I doubled the recipe, and using a 1.5 tbsp. scoop (#40), wound up with 38 cookies.  My cookies turned out larger, so my baking time was about 15 min.

Going to miss blogging and reading so many wonderful blogs, but here are some Fall & Winter recipe teasers in the meantime!

Parmesan Roasted Acorn Squash – great Fall side dish

Hearty Bean Stew – super easy, inexpensive, & filling

Pecan-Orange Granola w/ Dried Cranberries – my favorite granola recipe!

Pumpkin Bread – crumb topping, oh yeah