Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Peanut Butter and chocolate are my favorite combos to put in cookies.  I had some leftover Peanut Butter cups and wanted to use them up, besides eating all of them:)  Then I wanted to add some chocolate chips, can't beat more chocolate, and finally I added peanut butter. These cookies have double peanut butter, and double chocolate, Oh, my! We eat a lot of peanut butter in our house, about a jar a week of natural peanut butter, between the two of us. Scott has a whole wheat English muffin every morning topped with natural Peanut Butter and Gina's Jam, no excuses. I sent these cookies as part of a birthday package to my dear friend, Gina@SP Cookie Queen. Photo below courtesy of Gina's Facebook page, August 10th.

One thing that I have found out is that it's not a good idea to  bake with natural peanut butter, however, because the peanut butter never hardens, and it doesn't have any hydrogenated anything, only peanuts and salt. Ergo, your baked goods don't harden either.  One year I made the the Hershey's Kisses Peanut Butter cookies, aka, Peanut Blossoms at Christmas, and they crumbled.  I had a lot of peanut butter crumbs with Hershey's Kisses. Live and Learn, so If you make these incredible cookies, don't use natural peanut butter. Now when I bake anything with peanut butter, I have to use the unhealthy kind.

One more tip for baking there beauties is to refrigerate the dough for several hours, and line the baking sheets with parchment paper, that way your cookies won't spread to much.  I will be making these incredible cookies again for my PB and chocolate loving DIL soon:)  Enjoy! 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cup Cookies Adapted from Pennies on a Platter, originally adapted from Baking Junkie  about 24 cookies


Ingredients:
1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter  (not natural peanut butter)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk
One 6-ounce bag semisweet chocolate chip, or chocolate chunk pieces
6 ounces (1/2 bag) miniature Peanut Butter cups, chopped

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking soda, whisking until combined.  Set aside.
4. In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on medium high speed until smooth, about 1 minute.
5. Add the sugars and peanut butter, mixing until smooth, about 2-3 minutes.
6. Reduce the mixer speed and add the egg, vanilla, and milk, mixing until completely combined.
   Add in the dry ingredients, and mix until just combined.
7. Using a rubber spatula, gently stir in the chocolate chips and the chopped Reese's cups. ***
8. Drop the cookie dough by rounded tablespoons or cookie dough scoop, onto the prepared baking sheets and bake the cookies until lightly golden around the edges, about 10 minutes.  Let cool completely.



***At this point, I refrigerated the dough for two hours to prevent the cookies from spreading too much. they turned out perfectly.

l inked up my recipe to Brandie@The Country Cook's Weekend Potluck #82
 Stop by and say Hi to Brandie!