Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Happy Trails Peanut Butter Crunch Cookies


As I mentioned in a recent blog post my over zealousness tends to get the best of me. July 16th was Amazon Prime Day, and I got into the spirit of things in fine form. I didn’t buy much, but I ended up being quite surprised by what I did buy when a couple of boxes showed up at my door. I love Amazon’s Happy Belly Tropical Trail Mix. Generally, I am not a trail mix fan, but this has just the right amount of salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy, and a tropical taste that makes this enormously appealing, so I bought a discounted bag of this. Occasionally I will buy their Happy Belly Sweet & Spicy Trail Mix, and always share some with my dad, so I bought a discounted bag of this. But what I didn’t realize was that I’d also bought a bag of their Happy Belly Peanut Butter Plenty Trail Mix.

When I opened up the box and pulled out this big bag of trail mix with peanuts, peanut butter chips, Reese’s pieces, and so forth and so on, I looked at it and said to myself,  “Huh.”  Then I headed to Amazon, just knowing that they had pulled a fast one, looked at my orders, and lo and behold there it was. Wow, I thought to myself, that is a big bag of peanut trail mix. I thought about giving it to my dad, but I didn’t want to over burden him with something he may not particularly like. Don’t get me wrong, he loves peanut butter as much as I do, but I wasn’t sure that he would like this.

So I got to thinking about it, and thought how wonderful all of these ingredients would work in a cookie. I shot off a message to number two son, Andrew, who is my partner in crime in many things, and he thought this idea was brilliant. In fact, he was already to be my taste tester.

After all of this, I had to give it a try, and am I ever glad that I did. These are exceptional! I used a basic chocolate chip cookie dough, substituting 3 cups of Happy Belly Peanut Butter Plenty Trail Mix for the usual 2 cups of chocolate chips and one cup of nuts. Listen to the ingredients in this trail mix: peanuts, peanut butter cups, chocolate and peanut butter candies (a.k.a. Reese’s Pieces), peanut butter chips, and peanut butter coated pretzel balls (Those pretzel balls knocked my socks off! Really, I still can’t find one.) What is not to like here? The cookie is complex, peanutty, sweet, salty, crunchy, absolutely wonderful, with relatively little work, because, essentially, Amazon has done all of the work for you in combining these wonderful ingredients all together in one bag. (Now I’m wishing I would have bought two!) You can find this trail mix here, and the recipe for the cookies below. If you prefer not to buy such a big bag of trail mix, you can easily make your own concoctions using any combination of the list of ingredients above. If your family likes peanut butter, peanuts, or any of the components in this trail mix, they are going to love these cookies!

How did Andrew like them? He LOVED them! I sent him home with a small bag and he didn’t quite make it. He told me that he ate them in the parking lot of Costco. Yep, they’re that good! 
Happy Trails Peanut Butter Crunch Cookies

2 sticks butter, softened
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 375° F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment or a Silpat; set aside

Beat together butter and both sugars until creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Slowly add dry mixture to wet ingredients. Fold in
Happy Belly Peanut Butter Plenty Trail Mix.

Using a 1-1/2  tablespoon cookie scoop, scoop cookies onto
Silpat-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven; allow to cool on the cookie sheet 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 3 1/2 dozen.

Another delicious and easy cookie recipe that makes use of a variety of flavored chips is these South Pole Cookies.



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3 comments:

Sum of their Stories said...

I love how your turned a shopping basket error into a great new recipe, I hope your quest to find the peanut butter coated pretzel balls is sucessfull when you get to the bottom of the bag (maybe they are all hiding there??!)

Joanne said...

Wow! Those sounds delicious and that trail mix sounds divine. Pinned.

Anonymous said...

What a great idea to use the trail mix in a cookie! I would love these! Thanks so much for sharing with us at the Whimsical Wednesdays Link Party!