CHOCOLATE CHIP PEANUT BUTTER OATMEAL SKILLET COOKIE

Well thank goodness for blog post titles. If it weren't for them, you might be thinking, "What in the WORLD is that??" Well that, my friends, is simply a huge, amazing cookie that is baked in a skillet. It's sinfully delicious - like for real sinful. It's gooey. It's chocolate-y. It's my new favorite dessert. Like - for real.

I found this dessert on Pinterest and I was itching to whip out my skillet the minute I saw it. I've seen a few recipes that involve making a cookie in a skillet, but nothing like this one. This one has it all - peanut butter, oats, chocolate, butter AND sweetened condensed milk. Everyone knows that anything with sweetened condensed milk is pretty much a winner...

And this was a winner people. I made this and photographed it whole before I dug in. That seemed like the longest few minutes of my life! It smelled insanely good. Once I dug in, I saw that the sweetened condensed milk turned into a a caramel-like sauce. That sauce mixed with the melted chocolate, peanut butter and the crunch of the oat topping - I swear it is one of the BEST things I've ever tasted. If you love those sweet things and easy to make desserts, then you must whip out your skillet and make this. 

Here is what you need and what to do:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned whole oats (regular, not quick cooking)
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
ice cream

1/ Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously spray an oven-safe 10 in skillet with cooking spray or brush it with melted butter. Set aside.

2/ Add the melted butter, egg, sugar and vanilla to a large bowl and whisk for about 1 minute or until the batter is fluffed. Add the flour, salt and baking soda and stir with a spatula until just incorporated. Add the oats and stir until combined.

3/ Add a little less than 3/4's of the batter to skillet. The batter will be a little sticky, so have a little patience in spreading it out. Slightly wet hands will help with the process. Reserve the remaining batter and set the skillet aside.

4/ In a small bowl, whisk the sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter together until smooth. Pour the mixture over the dough in the skillet.

5/ Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the top of the condensed milk mixture.

6/ Drop tablespoon-sized chunks of the reserved dough over the chocolate chips in the skillet. This will form a crust over the top of the cookie, so drop the dough as uniformly as possible.

7/ Bake for about 25 minutes or until the edges of the cookie are slightly crisp. The center of the cookie will be very gooey, but it will set as cools in the skillet.

**This cookie tastes heavenly in not one - but two ways. It tastes amazing right out of the oven with a dollop of ice cream on top. But once it cools completely, you can slide it out of the skillet, cut it up into bars and store it in a sealed container for up to 3 days or so. I served it to my co-workers in the form of bars and they LOVED it!

Enjoy!

For a healthier cookie, substitute the peanut butter for almond butter, flour with quinoa flour and oats with a 5-grain blend!

Images by me