Chocolate Peanut Cookies

Leave it to me to have a new oven for a few months and take all of those months to bother baking a batch of cookies. I’ve used the stove a bunch of times, the oven itself for cooking, but I did not use it for baking cookies until today! Since the weather is becoming cooler I am in a baking mood and what better way to kick-off baking season than with a batch of chocolate peanut cookies? I originally obtained this recipe from the Taste of Home Most Requested Cookies cookbook but I changed a few ingredients to make it my own (and also because my local supermarket didn’t have any mini peanut butter cups for sale!).

• Ingredients:
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup peanut butter (two of the Jif to-go cups works for this if you don’t keep PB on hand, like myself)
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons beaten egg (not a whole egg!)
• 2 tablespoons 2% milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup AP flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup honey-roasted peanuts, slightly crushed
• 1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup peanut butter chips

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. I tried out my new KitchenAid sifter & scale stand mixer attachment today and it made measuring just the right amount of dry ingredients seamless.
3. In a large bowl of a stand mixer, fixed with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, peanut butter, and both sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, milk, and vanilla.
4. Gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt mixture to the creamed mixture and mix well. This is where the sifter attachment came in handy.
5. Remove bowl from the stand mixer and stir in the peanuts, chocolate chips, and peanut chips.
6. Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto two ungreased baking sheets (this recipe makes about two dozen cookies so you will most likely need more than one baking sheet). Place both sheets in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes (start to keep an eye on them around the 10 minute mark, depending on your oven).
7. When finished baking, remove sheets from oven and wait one minute before transferring cookies to wire cooling racks. Store in an airtight container.

Not the best photo but definitely gets the point across.

These were delicious and nice and gooey inside (while still warm) with the perfect mix of chocolate and peanut butter. Definitely an easier cookie recipe since they are drop cookies and only take a few minutes to bake in the oven.