cookies are the key to world peace.

Day 10 of 12: Chocolate Peanut Butter Munchies :)

A.K.A. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in cookie form!

I love peanut butter.  Yes, I LOVE it with all my heart.  And I equally love chocolate.  Mix the two flavors and, well, I’m surprised I can even handle something so AMAZING.  Chocolate and peanut butter might be two of my favorite sweet flavors.  Toss in some Grape Nuts and this cookie might be the all-in-one food for me (kidding, of course..).

I got this recipe from Bake or Break.  For my 12 Days of Baking, I knew I had to squeeze in another peanut butter recipe.  I honestly wasn’t expecting anything too special from this recipe, so I was totally caught off guard by how absolutely perfect it was.  The texture of the cookie is almost brownie-like, and the peanut butter center has the taste and texture of the center of a Peanut Butter Cup.  I had always wondered what those centers were made of (they obviously weren’t just pure peanut butter).  Now I know. :)  My favorite thing about this recipe?  I thought it incredible that the recipe incorporates peanut butter into the chocolate dough.  This inclusion of peanut butter in the chocolate cookie base gave the cookie another peanut butter kick (you can never have too much peanut butter kick in a cookie), which made it that much better.  The peanut butter in the cookie base definitely helped with the brownie-like texture, too.

I seriously can’t stop drooling over this recipe.  I might be overreacting… But seriously, if you have a jar of peanut butter just sitting in your pantry, go make these NOW.  I might very well have discovered my new favorite cookie! :)

P.S. I may have exaggerated a bit about how much I enjoy peanut butter at the beginning of this post… Maybe.

Day 1 of 12: Peanut Butter Cookies (with Milk Chocolate Chunks & Peanut Butter Morsels) :)

It’s December!  Fall quarter has ended, finals are over, and I’m back home in Portland. :)

With Christmas just around the corner, just about every baking blogger is scurrying to compile gift baskets full of goodies to deliver to everybody they know and love.  I’ve stumbled upon a few baking bloggers who traditionally bake “12 Days of Cookies.”  This concept is pretty straight forward: during the month of December, you bake 12 different types of cookies before Christmas.  Due to the mayhem of the quarter, I haven’t been able to bake as much as I’ve wanted to (although I did get to squeeze in a few baking sessions here and there).  So, 12 days of baking 12 different cookies?  Seems like the perfect way to get back into the baking groove to me!  I’m definitely up for the challenge, and I’ve gathered so many different ideas!  Whether my brother is ready to eat 12 different types of cookies.. well, that’s another story.

Today (my first full day back home) has been dubbed Day 1 of my 12 Days of Cookies.  This recipe was originally used as a “Peanut Butter Blossom” cookie (just a plain PB cookie with a Kiss plopped right in the middle).  The Kiss in the middle didn’t really appeal to me… Don’t get me wrong, the PB Blossoms are adorable, and look delicious.  But I’ve been on a search for the perfect peanut butter cookie recipe for what seems like forever, that I couldn’t let the huge Kiss in the middle distract me.  I omitted the Kiss, and threw in some milk chocolate chunks and peanut butter morsels.  The result?  Well, let’s just say I’m definitely heading in the right direction for finding the perfect peanut butter cookie recipe.  :)

These cookies turned out soft and chewy (all at once, my favorite!).  Usually, my peanut butter cookies turn out way too crumbly, but that definitely wasn’t the case here.  The peanut butter flavor shined, and the milk chocolate complemented the peanut butter perfectly (don’t think I’ll be pairing semi-sweet chocolate with peanut butter ever again).  The tiny boost of peanut butter flavor offered by the peanut butter morsels was lovely.

My only problem with these?  They didn’t spread much, and came out a bit more fluffy than I prefer (I’m one of those flat-but-not-too-flat cookie lovers..).  After seeing how fluffy the first batch turned out, I decided to flatten them.  I couldn’t decide whether I liked the flattened or fluffy ones more.  The fluffy ones are displayed in the photo, and, after taking the pictures, the fluffy ones definitely started growing on me..

Anyway.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  My mom tried a few and loved them.  Due to my baking at odd hours of the night, I haven’t been able to share these with anybody else yet.  These are definitely my most successful attempt at baking peanut butter cookies, though. :)

Did I ever mention how incredible silicone mats are for baking?

My sister got this for me from Williams-Sonoma (she and I could go completely broke wandering around in that store.. we really should be banned).

Using a silicone mat definitely prevents the waste that results from using parchment paper.  And the cost for constantly using parchment paper definitely adds up to (and exceeds) the price of one of these.  Trust me, the purchase is worth it if you bake a lot.

I love this mat!

Doubly peanut butter cookies. :)

I was in the engineering lab last night (yes, doing work in a lab on a Friday night..), working on a project with my lab partners.  We were there for what felt like foreverrr.  All of us had missed dinner, and we were all going a little insane, melting our brains over this project of ours.  Somehow, the subject of peanut butter came up, and all of our mouths watered, insanely.  We ended up surrendering to our lab around 10 PM, and decided that we’d finish it today.

So, before I headed into the lab today, I decided to bake up some peanut butter cookies for my lab partners. :)

I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen.  I swear, all of Deb’s recipes are amazing, and her food projects always seem to turn out perfectly.  I wish mine would!  I didn’t have any chocolate chips on hand, and I was kind of aiming for a purely-peanut-butter cookie, so I doubled the amount of peanut butter chips and omitted the chocolate chips.  I do love how peanut butter chips are incorporated into this recipe.

I’ve been searching for a perfect peanut butter cookie recipe for a while now.  They always turn out to be way too dry.. but I guess that’s not too surprising.  This was definitely one of my better attempts at peanut butter cookies, but I can’t say it’s the number one, “search no further”, go-to recipe.  I’m still on my search, and I have about half a dozen bookmarked recipes I have to try.  I’m excited!  There are so many recipes that I want to try.. I just wish I had more time!  Maybe I should give up this “sleeping” thing.  It seems like a frivolous way to spend my time anyway. :p

Sorry for the horrible picture.  I couldn’t find any decent lighting.  Pooo.  I feel obligated to post a picture with a recipe, though.  It’s just more entertaining that way!

Anyway.
I hope everybody’s having a lovely weekend. :)

Back to studying for me.  Woo!

One of my all-time favorite meals: peanut butter & banana sandwich. :)

cupcakejunkie:

Chocolate cupcakes, filled with ganache and Reeses peanut butter cups, topped with peanut butter frosting and more Reeses peanut butter cups.

Peanut butter & chocolate: one of the most amazing combinations EVER.  This is definitely the next cupcake recipe I’d love to test out! :)