Take 5 Cookies

I found this recipe on cookiemadness.net and it sounded like a great combination of flavors and textures. Crunchy, creamy, sweet and salty. The cookie is a tribute to the Hershey’s candy bar “Take 5” which is peanut butter, caramel and pretzels covered in milk chocolate…delicious. The original recipe is on the cookiemadness site. This recipe is basically the same with a few changes I made. I was pleased with the way they came out. The caramel was tough. I would probably make my own caramel the next time so that it is easier to drizzle. Simply melting the store bought kind never got smooth enough to make a pretty drizzle, more like clumps which isn’t too pretty.

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Take 5 Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 Cups creamy or chunky peanut butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chunks (your choice of intensity, just use good chocolate)
1 cup of pretzel sticks lightly crushed (good and salty) plus more for garnish
soft caramels to melt and drizzle

Preheat oven to 325. Line baking sheets with parchment.

Stir together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.
In medium bowl, cream together butter and sugars until creamy. Add corn syrup and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the peanut butter, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Stir in the flour mixture. Mix in half of the chocolate and the pretzels.

Drop dough by soup spoon full onto cookie sheets. Add 3 or 4 more chunks of chocolate on top and a few nice size pieces of pretzel so that they will show nicely when baked off.

Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, until they are lightly golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.

When cool drizzle with caramel.

Yield: approximately 40 cookies