Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies – Recipe!

Who doesn’t love chocolate and peanut butter together?  I happen to enjoy peanut butter in any situation, but when you add it to chocolate, it goes into a whole new category.  We owe gratitude to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for this fabulous combination, but a big peanut butter chocolate chunk cookie is probably even better in my book, especially if you love a soft nutty cookie studded with chocolate.

I’ve been baking my own cookies since I was in the 5th grade, so I’d like to think I’m an expert on the subject at this point.  I am not much of a horn tooter, but here I am going to toot my own horn and say, I have a one of the best chocolate chip cookie recipes on the planet.  I worked on it for years and now I see many on the internet that are very similar, but I’d like to believe it’s my recipe that started this fad.  Hah.  If you haven’t tried it, you should bake a batch and see for yourself.

Creamy peanut butter is necessary, not the natural stuff, this isn’t a healthful recipe, it’s a cookie.  The other ingredients are the classic things cookies are made of like flour, sugar, butter and vanilla.  After the first batch is baked, I usually scoop out all the dough into balls and freeze them on one sheet pan.  I later bag them in a freezer bag and bake them batch by batch, so they’re hot and fresh every time.  That’s my favorite cookie tip – warm cookies when ever you want them.

Ingredients

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups chocolate chunks

(Makes about 30 cookies)

To Prepare:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line baking sheet with parchment or silpat, set aside.
2. In a stand mixer or large bowl, cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars, about 4 minutes.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing in between.  Add vanilla and continue to mix for 1 minute.
3. Add flour, soda and salt all at once and mix on low for 1 minute.  Remove bowl from stand and mix chocolate chunks in by hand.  Scoop dough out into sheet pan and bake for 13-15 minutes, or until set, but not too brown.
4. Remove and cool on sheet pan.  Store in airtight jar.  Enjoy!