I had originally planned on sharing one of the soup’s I’ve made recently, but in light of the upcoming holiday, I thought I’d go ahead and share these cookies instead. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who are super organized and have already plotted out exactly what they’re making and when. They might even have most of their holiday baking done already. I’m not one of those people, however, so I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that a few of you might not be either.

I made these cookies to rave reviews… the recipe is adapted from one I found in a Hershey’s Classics cookbook I have at home. The best thing about these cookies is that you can make them with any kind of baking chip you like. The original recipe called for chocolate chips, I used peanut butter chips. I have plans to make them with mint chips, and with a cherry flavored chip that I found at Walmart this year. That’s another reason I decided to share these cookies this week– even if the chocolate peanut butter combo ain’t your thing, the sky is the limit with these. The specialty swirled chips are great in these cookies, white chocolate chips, I don’t think you could go wrong with any flavor you dig up.

So let’s get started.

Flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, butter or margarine, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, peanut butter chips

Because I like to follow the directions AND dirty every bowl in my house, first I mix together the dry ingredients. In a small bowl, put 2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour.

1/3 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon of baking soda

and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Give that a quick stir together and set aside.

In another bowl (this is where my penchant for dirtying every dish I own comes in), put 1 cup (2 sticks) of softened butter or margarine

Add 3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.

Beat on medium speed until blended. Or if your mixer is like mine, which goes fast and FASTER, the lowest speed you’ve got it good!

Add the eggs

and beat until they’re well mixed into your batter.

Then you can start gradually adding the flour mixture you set aside earlier.

Beat until that’s well incorporated.

Add a little more…

Beat until that’s combined…. it’s fun to watch your cookie dough get more chocolate-y! Keep doing that until you’ve added all of your flour mix. I suppose you could do it all at once, but you’d probably end up with chocolate colored flour all over your kitchen if it’s not there already.

Next, dump in your entire bag of peanut butter chips.

And use a spoon to stir them in to the dough until they’re fairly well distributed.

Finally, drop the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. The recipe called for dropping by rounded teaspoonfuls, but that just sounded teeny to me. I used a tablespoon, and was very generous, and the cookies turned out to be a good size, in my opinion.

Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Pull them out of the oven while they still look slightly less than done, and they’ll be nice and soft and not overcooked! Let them cool slightly on the pan, then remove. The recipe calls for a wire rack, but I don’t have one. I’ve never had any issues cooling my cookies on wax paper. I may or may not have recently bought a wire rack though, so maybe I’ll find out soon if it really does make a difference!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups (12 oz. package) peanut butter chips (or chocolate, white chocolate chips, flavor of choice!)
1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Heat oven to 375
Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. add eggs, beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 8-10 minutes or until set. Cool slightly, remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.