Happiness is a Full Cookie Jar 2

This week's edition of the Jerry and Paul cookie bake involved Peanut Butter cookies. Paul being a peanut better 'freak' decided that he was craving them and again I had all of the ingredients so we went wild!

I also had some things to add into the cookies: chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and some tinay chocolate covered caramels that we had bought in the States - we knew that they would be wonderful added to the cookies and they were!

One of the challenges of searching for recipes on the net is that you often find so many that look great. Searching for peanut butter cookie recipes was to follow this patterin. In the end we went with a recipe that we found on-line at the Food and Wine web site. It is one of their website exclusives (whatever that means)

Peanut Butter Cookies

ingredients

• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 pound bittersweet chocolate, cut into 1/2-inch chunks (1 1/2 cups)
• 1/2 cup salted peanuts

directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and position 2 racks in the lower third. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter with the brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat at low speed until blended. Add the peanut butter and beat until combined. Beat in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Beat in the chocolate chunks and peanuts.
2. For each cookies, use an ice cream scoop or a large spoon to scoop 3 tablespoons of the dough onto parchment-lined or nonstick baking sheets; space them 2 inches apart. Bake for about 13 minutes for slightly chewy cookies and 15 minutes for crisp cookies; shifting the pans from top to bottom and front to back for even baking. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

To this mixture we added the peanut butter chips and the chocolate covered caramels. I knew that they were a hit with paul when he had 9 right off of the cooling racks! Some int he last batch were a little too brown on the bootom so they went home with mom who professes to like burned cookies.