Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I adapted these cookies from Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup chunky peanut butter at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl or the bowl of your Kitchenaid / mixer, beat butter and peanut butter together until fluffy.

Add sugars and beat until smooth. Add egg and mix well. Add milk and vanilla extract. Add flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in chocolate chips.

Place 1/2 cup of sugar in a small bowl.  Using a tablespoon or small cookie scoop, scoop rounded bits of cookie dough and roll into a ball in your hand. This is crumbly dough so work over the bowl. Drop the ball into the sugar and coat.  Place on a cookie sheet, leaving room for expansion.  I put 12 to a half sheet pan.  Using a fork, lightly flatten the ball. 

Bake 10 to 12 minutes.  I baked two trays at a time.  I rotated the trays at 7 minutes then baked for 5 more minutes.  Oven temps vary though.  The cookies won’t look 100% done but don’t overcook. They’ll firm up a bit as they cool. 

Ingredient Notes

I used sweet cream butter because that’s what I had in the house.  I usually use unsalted for recipes.  These cookies were delish… I doubt the type of butter would make a huge difference either way. 

I used Skippy Natural peanut butter… half chunky and half smooth because we were almost out of chunky. 

Tip

Warm your measuring cup up with hot water and don’t dry it before measuring your peanut butter.  Most of it will fall right back out after measuring rather than having to scrape it all out with a rubber spatula. 

Cooking with Kids

Risa and Jasper both wanted to help.  I usually let them help with measuring but they came in late to help.  Risa cracked the egg and measured the chocolate chips (sampling a few as she measured, of course).  They both helped get the cookies on the sheet, assembly-line fashion.  We each took turns doing different jobs... scooping & rolling, coating in sugar, and flattening with a fork.

Press Dough! Oh no!

I long for the days when the children's favorite shows were on Noggin and PBS Kids.  Noggin and PBS Kids don't air commercials.  Now that their favorite show is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic... okay, EVERYONE'S favorite show is now My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic... we are a family of bronies... where was I?  Right!  MLP:FIM is on The Hub.  The Hub airs commercials... a lot of commercials... a lot of the stereotypically awful children's commercials that involve every marketing ploy known to entice your kids to want everything they see.

We make it pretty clear that requesting something they've only seen on a commercial just doesn't fly.  We show the kids reviews online of products that seem so cool on TV.  The reviews almost always point to the product being less... WAY less... than implied in the shiny commercial. Fushigi anyone?  Occasionally though one product just sticks with one of the kids and he or she won't drop the desire for that product.  The most recent obsession was Risa's and Press Dough.  She really REALLY wanted to make sugar cookies like they had on that commercial.  The requests for Press Dough have been consistent for several months and were brought up at times far removed from the viewing of any commercials.

Wanting to honor her desire, but not really wanting to pay $20 for over-glorified Playdoh tools that would be used once, I came up with the next best thing... or rather, the original best thing... Playdoh tools!  Press Dough is essentially tools for dough.  Playdoh makes fun, colorful tools for dough.  We already owned a LARGE box of fun, colorful Playdoh tools.  After a spin in the dishwasher, they worked GREAT!  Risa and I had a fun time making sugar cookies.  We used a sugar cookie dry mix.  Divided in half and alternated between using the dough and keeping it cold, the dough worked great with the Playdoh tools.  We didn't dye the dough though that would be easily done.  We had a pleasant afternoon, saved $20 and satisfied her cookie making wish.  WINNING!