Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter Cookies

Some of my Fresh From Oregon dishes do not always come from a trip to the local farmers market for local grown fruits and vegetable but from local Oregon made products.  Wild Squirrel Peanut Butter is one of my most recent discovers of Oregon made products.  Here is their story “One day, at their apartment in Eugene, Oregon, University sophomores Keeley and Erika were scraping the bottom of yet another jar of peanut butter. With no more peanut butter and a surplus of celery, they were faced with a familiar conundrum.  Luckily, they had a bag of raw peanuts, a brand new food processor, and two squirrelly little minds. It didn’t take long before they had created a delicious batch of homemade peanut butter.”  I picked up a jar of their Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter and a jar of the Honey Pretzel Peanut Butter to see what I could create.  Their other flavors of peanut butter are Cinnamon Raisin and their newest Sesame Cranberry.  They also have almond butters, Chocolate Sunflower and Vanilla Espresso.  The first thing I wanted to make was a peanut butter cookie and give it a make over with the Wild Squirrel Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter.  Enjoy the cookies below with a big glass of milk!  You can find Wild Squirrel Peanut Butters and Almond Butters at these local stores or order online from their website.

Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookie:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Wild Squirrel Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter
1/2 cup sugar (Plus additional for rolling cookies in before baking)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Garnish:
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup toasted coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix until combined about 1 minute.  In separate bowl add flour, baking soda and salt and mix to combine.  Add to the wet ingredient and mix until fully combined, about 2 minutes.  Form into 1-inch balls, roll in the sugar and place on baking sheet, flatten with a fork creating a criss-cross design.  Bake 10-12 minutes until brown.  If you under bake until lightly brown you will have a soft cookie but if you like a cookie with a crisp crunchy taste bake at the higher time until brown.  When cool melt chocolate and drizzle over the cookies and immediately sprinkle with the toasted coconut.  Tip: Make sure you fully mix the peanut butter when you open the jar, you will see the oil is separated and laying on the top.