This skillet cookie is chocked full of peanut butter, chocolate chips, Butterfinger min- candy bars and more chocolate chips. Wow! It's plenty for 2-6 people. What a treat!
This is an easy recipe for a thick cozy cookie to share. Whether you whip it up for a 6” cast iron skillet or a larger 9” skillet, it’s easy either way.
Gram used her heavy cast iron skillets to create so many delicious meals – usually on her wood-fired stovetop making fried chicken, eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes, French toast and all other those cozy home meals.
The convenience of frying in a cast iron skillet was that she could begin the frying on top of her stove and then set the entire pan into her oven. That way, she could continue to clean the kitchen, can pickles, cook up stovetop squash, wash dishes, sew doll clothes for me, or even organize her sewing cupboard. Gram’s work on the farm was never done. Seems she never sat down.
Fifty years later my hubby and I continue to use these very same heavy heirloom skillets for much more, including steaks, pies, cakes, breads and now scrumptious skillet cookies. They NEVER wear out!
The recipe I’m using for my PB CC Cast Iron Skillet Cookie today is my Giant Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe (with a few tweaks), but I’m only using a portion of that recipe. The rest I’ll freeze and bake into cookies or another skillet cookie on another day. I LOVE it when I can use one recipe to produce more than one delicious sweet to eat! I made the full recipe, but only used about a quarter of the recipe for this 6” skillet cookie. To make two 6" skillet cookies, make a half recipe. If you want to make the 9” skillet cookie, you can also use about half or more of this recipe, depending on how thick you want the cookie.
Preheat your oven to 350F degrees.
Prep your baking pan:
- I usually wipe the cast iron skillet well and rub vegetable oil in it.
- Let it set for about 10 minutes and then wipe it out as good as you can get it.
- Then lightly butter your 6” skillet.
- No need to use a parchment paper liner.
- No need to preheat the pan.
Gather up your Ingredients:
1 C Brown Sugar
1 C Sugar
1 C Peanut Butter, creamy
1 C Butter, softened
2 Eggs, room temperature
1 T Vanilla extract
2 ¾ C Flour
1 t Baking powder
1 t Baking soda
1/2 t Salt
10-12 oz Chocolate chips, semi-sweet or dark chocolate, mini works, too
1 C Mixture of peanut butter chips and chocolate chips, optional for decorating
Filling:
6 Butterfinger mini candy bars, rough chopped
Topping to melt on top of baked cookie:
2 Butterfinger mini candy bars, rough chopped
20 Chocolate chips, semi-sweet
Topping for eating time:
Chocolate or pumpkin ice cream to fit your desires.
Caramel drizzle or chocolate chips sprinkled on top.
Make and bake your cookie dough:
- Beat the sugars, butter, peanut butter, vanilla extract and eggs together until well combined. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl so everything is properly incorporated. Set aside.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Slowly beat the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture, scraping down the sides and stirring up the bottom so all the dry ingredients are incorporated.
- Seal the bowl with plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least one hour or overnight in the refrigerator.
- Scoop and roll 24 dough balls and place on a parchment papered baking sheet. I use a medium cookie scoop to create even portions, then roll them with my hands.
- To make the cast iron skillet cookie, use 6 of the giant dough balls, flatten 4 of them and press them into the 6” cast iron skillet. You should have a nice thick crust in the bottom of the pan. If you want it a little thicker, go ahead and use more cookie dough. The dough will rise a little.
Add the Filling:
Sprinkle the 6 rough chopped Butterfinger mini candy bars all over the bottom of the layer of cookie dough.
With the remaining 2 giant dough balls, flatten and break them apart. Place the flat pieces on top of the Butterfinger candy and press down a little.
Bake the Skillet Cookie:
Bake at 350F degrees in the cast iron skillet for 25-30 minutes, until barely golden brown. Since my oven bakes hotter in the rear, I rotate the cookie pan at the 20-minute mark.
Leave the cookie in the skillet on a hot pad until cooled – about 25-30 minutes. Don’t overbake the cookie since it will continue to bake in the skillet.
Add the Topping:
- When the skillet cookie is done baking, sprinkle the rough chopped Butterfinger mini candy bars on top with the chocolate chips.
- Place the skillet back in the warm oven for 2-4 minutes so everything melts a little into the cookie.
Enjoy the cookie warm or cold, but be sure to add a scoop of ice cream on top for added deliciousness.
NOTE: If and when you want to bake the rest of the Giant Cookie dough balls, roll one side of each dough ball into a bowl of mixed peanut butter chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips. Press the chocolate chips into each dough ball with your fingers so they don’t roll off the cookies after you place them on the baking sheet. Bake fresh at 375 for 13-15 minutes. I check them at the 10-minute mark and rotate the pan since my oven does not bake evenly.
Baking, freezing and decorating options:
- Mix regular sized peanut butter chips with mini-chocolate chips in the dough.
- For a little more decadence, drizzle melted chocolate candies over each cookie.
And, if you want to get really, really, really decadent, melt a bag of chocolate candy melts and dip the cookies half way. Place the cookies onto a parchment paper to dry. Stick them in the refrigerator to speed up the drying process.
- I love to have a variety of frozen cookie dough balls in the freezer. That way I can have a variety to bake up fast for friends or family. I freeze the cookie dough balls in a parchment lined sealed container. Place them so they are not quite touching. That’ll make them easy to pull out for baking. I date the container and add the baking temp and time so I don’t have to look for the recipe later. They will last well over a month. If I need to make room for something else in the freezer, I’ll place the frozen dough balls into a sealable plastic bag. When I’m hungry for a cookie, sometimes I’ll just pull 2-4 dough balls out to bake. Last week I found some in the back of the freezer that had been in the freezer for over two months – how could that happen? I thawed them for about 20 minutes. They baked up just fine at 375F degrees and they tasted great.
I know some people just don’t care for peanut butter, but these chocolate enriched cookies might be a way to entice
disbelievers into believers. Whatever way you create, bake, decorate or devour your cozy, decadent Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie or the Giant PB Chocolate Chip Cookies, “Bake your own Memories!”
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