A Giant Valentine's Heart Shaped Triple Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie...for the one I love!

Do you know what my fantastic husband planned for us on Valentine's last year? 

Yes, we spent the afternoon parasailing on the magical island of Turks and Caicos, where we were lucky enough to be living.  It was amazing and will definitely go down as one of my best February 14th's ever!

So this year we find ourselves living in North Wales...how was I ever going to to top what Byron planned for me last year - the answer is I wasn't! So I stuck to what I do best and decided I would create the masterpiece of all sweet treats and that would be good enough.  I was ready to make the most extravagant layer cake I could dream up, but after quizzing Byron subtly one day last month about what his favourite dessert in the whole world would be...his answer was cookies!

Cookies? how boring can you get! I was not impressed! He said a triple chocolate cookie would be his favourite ever dessert.  So I started thinking of ways I could jazz up a triple chocolate cookie...and that's when I remembered the cookie I got him on our 2nd Valentine's together...

Excuse the very bad phone picture, but this was a giant heart cookie from Millie's.  I decided if I bought a giant heart cookie pan I could have a go at creating my own!



If you have good eyesight you will have noticed the message on that cookie from 6 years ago reads 'Wouldn't it be nice'.  I'm a huge Beach Boys fan and this used to be 'our song' whilst we were dating, the lyrics fit our state of mind perfectly - 'Wouldn't it be nice if we were older then we wouldn't have to wait to so long' etc.. we even had somebody play this song on the piano at our wedding, it was pretty awesome! So this time around I decided the message should read 'it's so nice' because we don't have to long for days of being together all the time because they are here now!

I was recently alerted by an American friend of mine that Asda have started selling mini Reese's peanut butter cups! This was exciting news and so as Byron is such a peanut butter lover I decided the cookie should involve them too, so I stuck them to the top of the cookie with a little melted chocolate and using edible glue I stuck a heart on each one too.  I also had a few leftover peanut butter chips that came in handy as well.

This is the chocolatey goodness that inspired me!

I used my good old chocolate and peanut butter cookie recipe that had impressed us recently, with a few adaptions to make it 'TRIPLE' chocolate as Byron had requested!

Giant Triple Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie:
Adapted from Bakerella

185g or 1 1/2 cups plain flour
60g or 1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
113g or 1/2 cup butter, slightly softened
335g or 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
130g or 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

100g milk chocolate chunks

100g white chocolate chunks

50g Reese's peanut butter chips

To decorate:

Reese's mini peanut butter cups

Red sugar hearts

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Grease your cookie pan with butter.

In a small bowl, mix flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt using a wire whisk and set aside.

In a free standing mixer, cream butter and sugar with peanut butter until light and fluffy.

Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

Add flour mixture into creamed mixture and mix until combined.

Stir in milk and white chocolate chunks, and peanut butter chips.

Transfer cookie mix into prepared pan and press it down ensuring there are no gaps.

Bake for 14-18 minutes.

Leave to cool in pan for 10 minutes.  Run a knife around the edge of the cookie and gently transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely.

So the treat was well received by Byron, and we have been enjoying big chunks of it all week long! It is especially good if you warm it up in the microwave for about 20 seconds before eating because all the massive chunks of chocolate inside go incredibly gooey and delicious! 

I also made him a little slideshow of all our fun times together, accompanied by what else but The Beach Boys! If you want to check it out you can view it here. I even matched the pictures to the lyrics of the song, and as it was my first time using imovie I was pretty impressed with that! 

Hope you all had great Valentine's Day fun baking delicious treats for the ones you love too! 

Speaking of delicious treats, the previous winner of the cheesecake giveaway did not claim their prize! Sad for them, but great news for all of you who get another chance to win!

So the new winner is...no 119 

Emma Binning

Please email me or contact me via the facebook page a.s.a.p to give me your address and arrange delivery of your yummy prize!