Sarra Ina Garten’s chocolate peanut butter cookies are dense, fudgy globs made with melted chocolate, semisweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, whole walnuts, and whole pecans. The recipe makes 20 to 22 cookies.
Ina calls them Chocolate Peanut Butter Globs in Barefoot Contessa Foolproof, inspired by “huge, moist, dense double-chocolate cookies called Chocolate Globs” from a 1980s NYC restaurant called Soho Charcuterie. Those same cookies were also the inspiration for her famous Outrageous Brownies. She says she “added peanut butter chips to the original recipe and I think it’s even more outrageous.”
The chocolate and butter melt together first, then cool for 15 minutes before they go anywhere near the eggs. If you skip the cooling step, the hot chocolate scrambles the eggs and the batter turns grainy instead of smooth and glossy.
Ina Garten’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
Course: Desserts22
servings20
minutes15
minutes220
kcalInspired by the legendary Chocolate Globs from Soho Charcuterie in 1980s New York, these fudgy cookies from Barefoot Contessa Foolproof pack melted chocolate, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and whole nuts into every bite.
Ingredients
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6 tablespoons (3/4 stick / 85g) unsalted butter
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12 oz (340g) semisweet chocolate chips, divided
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2 oz (57g) unsweetened chocolate
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2 extra-large eggs
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1 tablespoon instant espresso powder, such as Medaglia d’Oro
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2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
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3/4 cup (150g) sugar
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1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (50g) all-purpose flour
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1 teaspoon baking powder
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1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
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1 cup (115g) whole walnut halves (not chopped)
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1 cup (115g) whole pecan halves (not chopped)
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2/3 cup (115g) peanut butter chips, such as Reese’s
Directions
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Melt the chocolate: Preheat the oven to 325F (165C). Line sheet pans with parchment paper. In a bowl set over simmering water, melt the butter, 6 oz of the chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate, stirring now and then. Remove from the heat and cool for 15 minutes.
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Beat the eggs: In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs, espresso powder, and vanilla until combined. Add the sugar, raise the speed to medium-high, and beat for 2 minutes until the batter is thick and falls back on itself like a ribbon. Set aside.
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Combine: With the mixer on low, slowly add the melted chocolate mixture to the egg mixture.
pletely on the pans. -
Add dry ingredients: Sift together the 1/3 cup flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold into the chocolate batter with a rubber spatula.
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Fold in the mix-ins: In a separate bowl, toss the walnuts, pecans, peanut butter chips, the remaining 6 oz chocolate chips, and the extra tablespoon of flour together. Fold into the batter.
- Bake: Drop rounded mounds of batter 1 inch apart onto the prepared sheet pans using two soup spoons. Bake for exactly 15 minutes. Don’t overbake. The cookies will be soft in the center. Cool com
FAQs
Why does Ina use espresso powder in a chocolate cookie?
The espresso doesn’t make the cookies taste like coffee. It deepens the chocolate flavor the way salt deepens savory food.
One tablespoon dissolves into the egg mixture and works in the background. You’d never guess it was there, but take it out and the cookies taste flatter and less chocolaty.
Why use whole nut halves instead of chopped?
Ina specifically says “not chopped” in the ingredient list. Whole halves give you big, dramatic bites of walnut and pecan in every cookie.
Chopped nuts disappear into the dense batter and you lose that contrast between fudgy chocolate and crunchy nut. The cookies are called “globs” for a reason. They’re supposed to be chunky and loaded.
Can you skip the peanut butter chips?
Yes. Ina’s original inspiration, the Chocolate Globs from Soho Charcuterie, didn’t have them. She added peanut butter chips to make her version different.
Drop them and you have a pure double-chocolate cookie with nuts. Replace them with 2/3 cup more semisweet chocolate chips if you want to keep the same volume. Either way works.
Why do you bake these at 325F instead of 350F?
The lower temperature keeps the inside fudgy while the outside sets. At 350F the outside crisps too fast and the center dries out.
Ina says to bake for exactly 15 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center will not come out clean, and that’s correct. These are meant to be dense and slightly underdone in the middle, not cakey.
How should you store these cookies?
Wrap them well and keep at room temperature for up to 24 hours. After that, the texture starts to dry out.
For longer storage, freeze the unbaked mounds of dough on a sheet pan, then transfer to a freezer bag. Bake straight from frozen, adding 2 to 3 extra minutes. Ina says the baked cookies can also be wrapped and stored, but they’re best within a day of baking.
