Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

I created these cookies after Tuesday night pub trivia solely for the purpose of having a blog posting (only now am I realizing I could've written about the food I ate at pub trivia... next week). I started making them not realizing we were low on all sorts of ingredients, like granulated sugar and chocolate chips instead of peanut butter chips, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because we were low on granulated sugar, I bulked up the amount of brown sugar I would normally put in my chocolate chip cookies and because I put in more brown sugar, which tends to make cookies spread and get chewier, I added more flour to keep the shape of the cookies- the result is a delightfully soft Mrs. Fields sort of texture. I may even change my base chocolate chip cookie formula (which is pretty much my signature item) to this one instead.

Ingredients:

• ½ lbs. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• ½ c. granulated sugar
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbl. vanilla
• 2 c. flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¾ c. bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1 c. peanut butter chips

Directions:

preheat oven to 350˚F

1. Combine dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and salt) in a medium mixing bowl
2. Cream butter, granulate sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy
3. Add eggs and vanilla to butter and sugar and beat until well incorporated
4. Add ⅓ dry ingredients and beat until mostly mixed in, repeat with remaining ⅔mixing until flour is completely incorporated after the last third
5. Add peanut butter and chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed
6. Portion into ¼ c. or one level yellow scoop¹ domes onto a lightly greased baking sheet or silpat²
7. Bake for 10-13 min.
8. Cool on rack
9. Enjoy!

Makes approximately 18 cookies

Notes:

1. The secret to getting those perfectly round even cookies found in bakeshops is the use of different sized ice cream scoops such as this:
2. Using silpats or silicone baking mats keeps you from needing to grease pans and keeps clean up easier