Lately I have been dying for a good peanut butter cookie but, of course, it had to be homemade. I feel like the perfect peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie are elusive to me for some weird reason…they’re always too flat or crisp or cakey. I’ve done plenty of research and tried tons of recipes and never found the one that is the perfect combination of mostly chewy and a little soft. I mean, I know baking is a science but c’mon! How hard can it be?!? So for Superbowl Sunday I thought I’d try yet again to make the perfect cookie and I might have got pretty darn close.
I think those peanut butter chips deserve a close-up.
These cookies turned out soft and chewy and just all around delicious. Of course the true test was if they were the same way the next day as they were pretty much right out of the oven and miracle of all miracles, they were! Quite frankly, I’m suprised any of them even made it to the Superbowl party–I couldn’t keep Jeremy out of them!
Oh, and… I guess I might have had a couple too.
Now I couldn’t just stop at plain ‘ole peanut butter cookies (although with these you definitely could). I wanted a peanut butter cookie sandwich! I used a peanut butter and chocolate filling. Both were good and I personally liked the peanut butter filling but everyone seemed to prefer the chocolate a little more.
If you make these, be sure you have milk on hand. You will need it!
Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
1 1/4 c. All-Purpose Flour
3/4 t. Baking Soda
1/2 t. Baking Powder
1/4 t. Salt
1/2 c. Unsalted Butter, softened
1 c. Smooth Peanut Butter
3/4 c. White Sugar
1/2 c. Light Brown Sugar, lightly packed
1 Large Egg at room temperature
1 T. Milk
1 t. Vanilla Extract
1 c. Peanut Butter Chips
Directions
In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In an electric mixer, beat the peanut butter and butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and continue beating until fully combined. Add the egg, milk and vanilla extract and beat well. Add half the flour mixture fold in, then the rest of the flour and beat until no white pockets remain. By hand, fold in the peanut butter chips.
Using a small ice cream scoop, drop dough a couple inches apart, onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. Dip a fork in oil (I used peanut oil), tap off excess and gently indent cookie with a criss-cross pattern, being careful not to smash the cookie flat. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to cooling racks.
Makes 40 small cookies.
Peanut Butter Filling
3 T. Unsalted Butter, softened
1 c. Powdered Sugar, sifted
1/2 c. Smooth Peanut Butter
2 1/2 T. Heavy Whipping Cream or Milk
1 t. Vanilla Extract
Cream the butter with the powdered sugar, peanut butter, milk and vanilla until smooth. Spread filling onto half of the cooled cookies, then top with the other half to form sandwiches. Makes enough to fill 25 cookies.
For the chocolate, I used the Satiny Chocolate Glaze recipe which you can find in an earlier post here.
Nothing better than a good peanut butter cookie & an ice cold glass of milk!
call me weird…but I HATE that pb cookies have to have the fork shape on top. the other night, I told Sarah I’d make her pb cookies if I could skip that step…..we couldn’t compromise.
You’re going to have to make us some of those when you get back to Springfield. They look yummy! I agree with Jeremy….get some ice cold milk!
These sound amazing. And since your moving back to Springfield, I will go ahead and volunteer my tastebuds for your future creations. I promise to give you my honest opinion. 😉
Hah! Joel, they definitely don’t need the fork marks…i think it’s just fun to make them though. 🙂