Do you ever have foods that bring about certain memories? Maybe it’s that apple pie your mom makes a day or two after apple picking in the fall, that chocolate cake you eat every year for your birthday, or even that bag of Cheetos or mediocre pizza you share with a friend after a night out. These cookies fit under that category for me.
For me, these cookies are tied to a short road trip (we’re talking less than an hour here), craft beer, and a slew of Broadway love songs.
Last summer, my friends Jacqueline, Jen, and I decided to take a trip from Chicago to Munster, Indiana to visit the 3 Floyds Brew Pub and tour the brewery. It was something we talked about but had yet to make happen because our schedules never seemed to align properly. When we finally found a day, I made a batch of these cookies as a ‘road snack.’ We ended up eating them in the car while we waited to be seated in the brewpub (which had a delicious pork belly sandwich, fyi) to kill some time before our tour.
It was on this trip that we discovered that, while we have wildly different tastes in beer (okay, I’m the odd one here), we can all agree when it comes to cookies, and these were approved by all!
Really, I only brought maybe one cookie each, but I should have brought more because we ended the night watching Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana sing Broadway love songs in the park–Jacq and I can’t turn down Broadway, especially not when it’s Laura and Santino, they were Cinderella and Prince Topher, after all–and could have used them as concert snacks as well!
Disclaimer: this might be the easiest caramel sauce ever. You don’t need to melt sugar in a hot pan or wait for sugar water to reach a certain temperature. All you need to do is toss almost everything in a pan and let it melt together. Let it bubble a little bit, add the peanut butter, stir until it’s melted and voila! you’re done.
Do you have any foods tied to specific memories, single or recurring? I’d love to hear about them in the comments if you do!
| Cook Time | 20 minutes |
| Servings |
cookies
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- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
- pinch coarse/flaked sea salt
- 3-4 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
- 5 cups popcorn either made on the stovetop or air-popped
Ingredients
Peanut Butter Caramel Corn
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- Make the peanut butter caramel corn: Place plain/unsalted popcorn (air-popped or made on the stovetop) in a bowl, set aside. In a medium pot, melt the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, heavy scream, and sea salt until the sugars are dissolved and you have a smooth sauce. Stir in the peanut butter. Pour the peanut butter caramel sauce over the popcorn, tossing to coat. Pour the caramel corn onto a sheet of wax paper and allow it to set.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda; set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream together the butter and sugars until they're light and fluffy (about 3-5 minutes). Add in the egg and vanilla, one at a time. Mix to combine between each addition.
- Add the dry ingredients 1/2 at a time, mixing until the dough begins to come together after each addition. Stir in the chocolate chips, peanut butter caramel corn, and crushed pretzels. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 300°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop large mounds of cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes and immediately transfer the cookies to a cooling rack.