Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

I am channeling my inner Pioneer Woman (www.thepioneerwoman.com) and am trying my hand at a food blog-type entry. Fabulous recipe with step by step pictures. I'm no PW, but thought it'd be a fun little challenge.

I bake a lot. I love to cook, love to bake... and even with everything I make, Matt's favorite has always been these cookies. I've made these no less than 170 times in the 10 years we've been married. It's the recipe we always come back to...And now I am sharing the recipe with you, my five blog readers. Bake them yourself, and enjoy.

The ingredients: margarine, chunky peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and chocolate chips.

Cream one stick softened margarine and 1/2 cup peanut butter. I just use a hand mixer because this is a small recipe and isn't worth dragging out the big ol' stand mixer.

Dump in 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar and mix well.

Starting to look yummy...but I always tell Brooke "don't eat it yet!"

Add an egg and mix well.

Now here is where some people get fancy. Not me. I do not own a sifter, nor am I interested in dirtying one more tool, or having an additional chance to get flour everywhere. So, turn the mixer off; dump in 1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour, 3/4 tsp soda, and 1/2 tsp baking powder.

The original recipe calls for 1/2 tsp of salt. I don't like pouring out of the big salt container, and I don't like measuring with the salt shaker, so either Brooke or I just do a few shakes of salt from the salt shaker.


Mix well.

Add in 1/2 to 3/4 of a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Mix.

Taste test the dough. Yum. I always say if I die of salmonella tomorrow, at least I'll die happy.

I only bake cookies on stoneware. Only only only stoneware. I'm sure many of you do just fine with regular cookie sheets, but stoneware is the only way I get my cookies to turn out just the way I want to. I use the stoneware bar pan from The Pampered Chef. I also use the medium scoop from Pampered Chef to scoop the dough into happy little balls:

Bake at 375 and start the timer for 12 minutes. Check the cookies:

Above-- Not quite done yet...! They need to be turning a wee bit golden brown on top, like this:

Ah-hah- about 2 more minutes and they were ready.... yum. Remove from oven and set on stove. Let them sit on their hot little cookie sheet (if it's stoneware. If you're on a regular cookie sheet I don't know what to tell ya!) for about 10 minutes. This lets them cook a little longer and allows the gooey-ness to set back up a little bit. Then using your favorite cookie-removing spatula, move to the counter or a cooling rack.

Happiness on a plate. A photograph of love for my husband. Or is it my husband's reason for loving me? Nonetheless...these things are fabulous still warm. They're fabulous completely cooled. This batch of 24 will be gone within 36 hours in this house.

So whatcha think?

This recipe makes about 24 cookies, with enough dough left to allow everyone to have a spoonful of cookie dough. Or it makes 24 cookies, and one big one for the hubby you're trying to bribe/butter up for whatever reason!

Enjoy!