We’re still battling the ‘everyone’s sick, so anything complicated is unappealing’ cooking funk, but after I read Lisa’s Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Buttercream recipe in the Valentine’s Day Showcase this afternoon, I knew that something had to be done to get me past the intense chocolate craving that resulted. After some deep contemplation (it’s amazing how much deeper everything seems when you have enough cold medicine in your system), I remembered something wonderful: I have frozen cookie dough!!!
Frozen cookie dough is a wonderful thing!
Back at Christmas time, I made up a batch of PMS Cookie dough. Since it’s a big recipe, I was able to bake half and then roll the other half into balls and freeze it for an emergency just like today! Of course, right about now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What on Earth are PMS Cookies?…”
A few years ago, I was playing around with some cookie recipes and couldn’t find anything that quite fit my cravings, so I decided to experiment a bit and create my very own Frankencookie that included some of my favorite go-to flavors. After a lot of test batches (a fattening labor of love that I suffered through for the sake of culinary excellence), the PMS Cookie was born! As I mentioned above, this is a BIG recipe, so you may want to either cut it in half or plan on freezing either the dough or the baked cookies (it never hurts to lay in an emergency stash). Also, these cookies are VERY chunky. Like, shake the mixer almost off of the counter chunky. If you’re not a huge chunk fan, you can cut all of the add-ins in half without any major consequences, although somewhere I may shed a tear because you’re missing out on all of those wonderful, calorie-laden bits and pieces… LOL
PMS Cookies
- 1 1/2C Butter, softened
- 1 1/2C Granulated Sugar
- 1 1/2C Dark Brown Sugar, firmly packed
- 2C Creamy Peanut Butter
- 4 Large Eggs
- 3 TSP Vanilla Extract
- 5C + 4TBS Flour
- 2 TSP Baking Soda
- 1 TSP Salt
- 1C Milk Chocolate Chips
- 1C Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
- 1C Dark Chocolate Chips
- 1C Roasted, Salted Almonds, coarsely chopped (I use the Diamond smokehouse ones)
- 1C Pretzel Sticks, coarsely chopped
- 20 Caramels, cut into morsels (I did 9 pieces from each caramel) OR 2C of the Kraft caramel bits (little chip-sized balls for baking)
- Parchment Paper
- Preheat oven to 350*. Wait impatiently for oven to heat and butter to soften. Yell at German oven that takes forever to heat and never does what you want it to.
- Beat butter, sugars, and peanut butter at medium speed with a heavy duty mixer until creamy. Defiantly lick peanut butter off the measuring cup, just because you can.
- Add eggs and vanilla, using more force than is really necessary on the eggs and making a mess. Beat until blended.
- Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating just until blended. Get a face-full of flour when you accidentally turn the speed up too high. More yelling.
- Beat in remaining ingredients just until combined. Sample cookie dough while wistfully thinking “Salmonella- would that get me a night alone in the hospital?…”
- Drop by tablespoonfulls (I used a cookie scoop, but as long as they’re smaller than beer steins, you’re good) onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Eat more dough because really, who needs 5 dozen cookies kicking around the house?…
- Decide whether or not to flatten the cookies- they stay mounded if you don’t, but will work either way. Flattening is cathartic, and makes it easier to spread extra peanut butter on them later…
- Bake at 350* for 10-14 or until desired degree of doneness (okay, we’ve already established that they’re good RAW…) Note: If you’re using frozen dough, they’re going to probably take a little bit longer than normal- just keep an eye on them and play it by ear.
- Remove to wire racks, burning mouth in the process while trying to sample the finished product, and cool completely (about 15 minutes).
- Tell child that they’re ‘mommy cookies’, and boys don’t like them (well, he probably wouldn’t…)!
- Eat smeared with additional peanut butter, possibly with a side of Swedish fish depending on just how bad the hormones hate you this month.
Ready for the oven! Please note: I was good, I only made a dozen of these tonight!
Finally baked! Twenty minutes never seemed so long...
The finished product! Now, off to enjoy some cookies with a Nyquil chaser...
What, MORE Muffins??? 