Yummy Chubby Hubby Ice Cream Inspired Cookie Recipe

At our recent game night, I'd bought pretzel M&M's® for our guests.  Chocolate and pretzels--can't go wrong with that combo!  Those flavors reminded me of my favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, Chubby Hubby, and I thought it would be yummy to develop a cookie recipe inspired by those flavors.

Oh yeah, it totally worked.  And using the pretzel MnMs in the recipe made it incredibly easy--the chocolate and pretzels were all wrapped into one ingredient.

I started by adapting the original Nestle Toll House cookie recipe--it's a fabulous recipe to experiment with.

Chubby Hubby Cookie Recipe Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 2 cups pretzel  M&M's®
• 1 cup salted peanuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  

Cream sugar and butter together.  Beat in the eggs, one at a time.  Add the salt, vanilla, and baking soda, and mix.   Add the flour, and mix just until combined.

Add the M&M's® and peanuts, and mix just until combined.  I wanted some of the  M&M's® to break apart, so I mixed mine in my Kitchenaid mixer, but if you want your candies to remain whole, you'll need to mix them in by hand.

Spread the cookie dough in a 9x13 pan, and bake for 30-35 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the pan.  Let cool and cut into bars.

I originally intended to make this recipe with malt powder, too, to bring in some of that malted vanilla flavor from the ice cream.  But either I used up all my malt powder or can't find where I put it in my freezer, so that particular experiment didn't happen.  I have no idea how that might affect the recipe, but the next time I make these cookies, I'm going to be sure to give it a try.  I LOVE malt powder.  I'll report back with the results of my malted cookie experiment.