Farmhouse Style Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

 
My standard peanut butter cookie recipe is the one from the inside of the Crisco shortening sticks box (although I don’t know if its still on the box – I saved the recipe years ago). Usually I just make it straight, but this time the recipe kind of evolved as I was working on it – I wanted to make peanut butter cookies tonight, and I knew I wanted to add chocolate chips as well, so that was the beginning of the alterations.

Next, I had a jar of sorghum syrup (sent by an uncle in Wisconsin who used to grow sorghum on his farm) that I decided to use as a sugar substitute. I took a gamble and used the sorghum on a 1:1 ratio for the sugar and kept the liquid amount the same (the conversions I looked up said to use 1/3 more sorghum than sugar and 1/3 less liquid). Next time I think I’ll use the same amount of sorghum but a tablespoon less milk, since the dough was quite soft. While the original recipe calls for creamy Jif peanut butter, I prefer chunky natural peanut butter in cookies so I used that. 

They turned out pretty delicious. They have a deeper flavor than usual that I think must come from the sorghum, and the peanut butter / chocolate combination is unbeatable.

Farmhouse Style Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies – makes about three dozen
Adapted from Crisco “Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies” – found inside a box of Crisco shortening sticks.

3/4 cup all natural chunky style peanut butter (I like Adams brand)
1/2 stick Crisco shortening stick
1-1/4 cups sorghum syrup
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 extra-large egg
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
6 oz. milk chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. 

In a large bowl, mix the peanut butter, shortening, sorghum syrup, milk and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until the ingredients are well combined. Add the egg and mix again until it is blended in.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt and whisk to combine, then add to the wet ingredients and mix with the blender on low speed.

When all of the dry ingredients are mixed in, fold in the chocolate chips and put the dough in the refrigerator to chill for 20 minutes.

Lightly grease some cookie sheets (I needed three), and put the chilled dough on the sheets in heaping tablespoonfuls, about two inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the bottoms are beginning to brown and the middles are set.