Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

I've been thinking a lot about personality theory lately. (You can take the girl out of the psych classes, but you can't take the psych classes out of the girl.) Specifically, I've been thinking about introversion vs. extroversion.

Me? I'm a textbook introvert. I hate crowds. I get like social anxiety when I meet someone new. Small talk is not listed in my skillset. And I'm usually so wrapped up inside my own head that I have difficulty picking up on social clues. Like flirting. I never notice that someone's flirting with me until they're gone, and I'm like wait, was that flirting? Come back, I wasn't ready! Or when people mistakenly think I'm flirting with them, like the time the training class guy asked if I had any plans for the weekend, and I said, "not yet!" like in an excited voice, and there was this awkward silence, and in my head I'm like, "oh god, that wasn't a coy, flirty answer waiting for you to ask me out, I'm waiting for my friend to text me back to see if she wants to see Star Trek this weekend."

Socially awkward penguin, I am you.

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Somebody asked Neil Gaiman once how to seduce a writer, and he responded that while writers are very good at what happens inside their heads, we don't always notice what's happening outside of them, and will often fail to notice they are being flirted with, leaving everyone feeling very uncomfortable. He said the best way to do it is to give them a note that says, "You are invited to a seduction this Friday night."

Neil Gaiman gets me, you guys.

So while I like to pretend that if I ever met Felicia Day, I would be witty and interesting, and we'd become instant best friends, and she'd invite me to play tabletop games with her and Wil Wheaton, I know the reality is that I'd probably get very red in the face, say two coherent words, make a lot of incoherent vowel noise, and anything I do get out will most likely make me sound like a stalker. And then I'd probably trip and fall on my face (and I don't even want to think about what would happen if I met Benedict Cumberbatch in person. I've already got second-hand embarrassment from even considering the topic).

What does this have to do with cookies? Umm, nothing. I just thought I'd amuse you with the embarrassing details of my life.

These flourless cookies are surprisingly chewy, with a rich chocolate-y flavor. I've been a little obsessed with the idea of flourless peanut butter cookies lately, so when I needed a quick, mid-week chocolate fix, that's what I decided on. I used White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter for these, which gave me the "double chocolate" idea (chocolate and white chocolate). The cookies themselves are not overly sweet, which pairs well with the sweet white chocolate chips.

If you like your cookies chewy, these are most certainly for you. They are not delicate or gooey in the way flourless cookies often are. That bit of cocoa powder seems just enough to give these cookies proper structure. And, bonus, they are naturally gluten-free.

I usually prefer my cookies more on the softer side, so I might experiment more in the future with chilling or even freezing the dough, but for a quick and easy chocolate cookie recipe, these cannot be beat.

Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies
Yield: 20 cookies

Ingredients
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used White Chocolate Wonderful)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 whole egg plus 1 egg white
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch salt
1 cup white chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, mix all ingredients except chocolate chips until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips. On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat mat, drop the dough by rounded tablespoonful, leaving minimum 2 inches between each (cookies with spread). Bake about 10 minutes, until the edges are not quite set. Let cool on the pan until firm (about five minutes) before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe by Kim