Peanut Butter Shortbread with Salted Chocolate
It’s officially time for the 12 Days of Christmas Treats! I’m so excited to share all of these wonderful recipes with you, and let’s be honest, you can never have too many recipes for Christmas cookies!
I’ve been wanting to make these peanut butter shortbread cookies with salted chocolate since last Christmas and I’m so glad I finally got around to it. Peanut butter shortbread would be pretty good on its own, but then you dip the cookies in melted chocolate and sprinkle them with sea salt. The end result is amazing.
The shortbread just melts in your mouth, and the balance of sweet and salty is absolutely perfect. I can’t say enough good things about these cookies – you’ll just have to try them for yourself and let me know what you think. 🙂
P.S. You can see all of my Christmas treat recipes from over the years at this Christmas Cookies tag. Enjoy! And, as always, let me know if you try any and how you liked them.
Peanut Butter Shortbread with Salted Chocolate
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Topping:
- 4 ounces good quality chocolate- milk, semi-sweet, or bittersweet
- 2-4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus additional butter (or shortening) if needed to thin chocolate
- Fleur de Sel, for sprinkling
Directions:
- Beat together the butter and peanut butter with mixer at medium speed until smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating well. Stir in the vanilla. Add the flour and salt, beating at low speed until blended.
- Form the dough into balls (mine were about 10g each), place them on a cookie sheet & press the tops with a fork. Refrigerate until cold, 15-30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 275ËšF. Bake until the bottoms of the cookies are golden, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool completely.
- When the cookies have cooled, melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water. Add butter until the chocolate is a good consistency for dipping. (I used about 2 Tbsp, then thinned the chocolate out with shortening). Dip half of each cookie into the melted chocolate and place on a parchment-lined sheet. Sprinkle chocolate immediately with a few grains of Fleur de Sel.
from BitterSweetSpicy
Welcome! I'm Megan and it's my hope that here you'll find food that has been made with love and recipes that are shared with joy. Thanks for stopping by! 
YUM! 😉
These look wonderful… pinned!
Oh this is like gold!!
these are my comfort foods–all of these food groups!
lol
You can never go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate together. Love the sea salt addition!
I am so going to make these today. They look fantastic and will definitely satisfy my sweet tooth I have going on over here. Thanks!
How did they turn out? I hope you liked them! 🙂
Megan, these are wonderful. Just a question, would it be okay to melt the chocolate in the microwave? I did it as per your directions and it seemed to get thick, even when I added the butter and some shortening. But they taste great! Almost like Dark Chocolate covered Almonds with Sea Salt from Trader Joe’s!
So glad you liked them! and yes, any way you want to melt the chocolate is fine. Just be careful not to overheat it or it will “seize”. It can be so hard to get the right consistency, I agree!
oooh i so want to try these! i love this combo 🙂
Megan – do you think I could freeze these? Should I freeze them without the chocolate?
You can freeze them with the chocolate on, no problem.
I’ve never had peanut butter shortbread! What have I been waiting for! They look so good!
Hi Megan:
My company is having a bake-off tomorrow and I am entering these. They are so pretty!
Thank you!
How did they do in the bake-off?? I hope you liked them 🙂
These look amazing! Approx how many cookies does one batch make? I don’t think I saw that anywhere. Thanks!
Unfortunately I didn’t pay any attention when I made these, I’m sorry! I really need to get better at that. I’m trying to remember back, and I think I cut the recipe in half, and I’d say I got around 2 dozen or so? Hope that helps! I’ll update the recipe when I make them again.
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Hey Megan, I just had to let you know that I made these for Valentine’s week Bible Study snacks. Instead of the balls, I rolled them out and cut them with heart-shaped cookie cutters. They were beautiful, crisp and shortbread-like–so surprising for a peanut butter cookie! My husband loved that they “really taste like peanut butter!” Thanks for the recipe!
I loved these the peanut butter gave it some extra moisture my love is M&Ms so I add mini M&M to it and they were AMAZING
can these be made ahead and frozen?
Yes, I froze them when I made them and they were just as good when defrosted. Enjoy! 🙂
Is the oven temperature correct?.. most of my cookies bake at 350degrees not 275 degrees..