Chocolate Peanut Butter Rock Cakes

Peanut butter is like marmite in my world, you love it or you hate it. Hubby would sit and eat a whole jar, whereas it makes me retch and gives me a mildly itchy tongue. Which made it the perfect ingredient when I felt like baking but didn’t want to be tempted by the results!

I was actually trying to make cookies, but they didn’t melt correctly in the oven, I think more butter was called for. The recipe below has upped the quantities of butter to make more cookie like rock cakes, as these were an odd cookie-rock cake-brownie combo that wasn’t quite hard enough to be a rock cake, flat enough to be a cookie, or damp enough to be a brownie. Recipe is adapted from an American one, so very easy to measure if you have a set of cups.

Ingredients

1¼ cups plain flour
½ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup peanut butter
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup peanuts
Coarse salt for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 180ͦC. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.
Beat together the butter, peanut butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract. Scrape the bowl. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low until just combined. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips and peanuts.
Drop by two heaping tablespoonfuls of dough, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart.

Sprinkle a small pinch of coarse salt on top of each cookie. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the outside of the cookies are set but the middles are still a little soft. Cool cookies on the baking sheets. Store in an airtight container.