Found a recipe that sounded good, made a few alterations, and found a winner. If you like Peanut Butter and Chocolate chips, you will love this cookie:
Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 sticks of butter at room temperature
1-1/2 cups light brown sugar, packed
2/3 cup granulated sugar
3 medium eggs (or 2 large/extra-large eggs) at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup peanut butter (see note!!!)
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Semisweet chocolate chips (see note)
Peanuts (optional)
Chocolate ganache (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt and add to the batter, alternating it with the peanut butter until all combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks and peanuts.
Using an ice-cream scoop ( I think mine is a 2oz), scoop out some dough, using the sizes of the bowl to flatten/level the scoop. Drop the ball of dough onto a piece of parchment paper or silicon pad. For regular size cookies, cut the dough balls into half, roll them into balls and place on a cookie sheet. For smaller cookies, divide the dough balls into 1/4s, and then roll them into balls and place on a cookie sheet.
Once on the cookie sheets, press the cookies down with the back of your fingers (make bunny ears, fingers slightly bent but together, and use the finger area between the nail and the 2nd knuckle), until the cookies are round and about 1/4 inch thick. Put into the oven and back for: Regular size 15 minutes, for smaller size around 11minutes.
Remove from the oven and let cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
NOTE: Peanut Butter – The original recipe only called for 1 cup of smooth peanut butter (I used Peter Pan), but I found the cookie lacking in taste and texture. So on my second batch, I used 1 1/4 cup of Kroger brand of crunchy Peanut Butter, that uses actual whole pieces of peanuts instead of finely chopped pieces, and that was a whole lot better.
ALSO, I used a typical peanut butter with the recipe. If you use peanut butter that is much sweeter (like Reese’s brand) or use an all natural (just crushed it yourself), then you will need to alter the sugar a bit to fit your brand.
Chocolate Chips – The original called for 1 lb of chocolate chunks, and since I didn’t have chunks, I used regular chocolate chips, and felt that they were just to big. So in the 2nd batch I wanted to use 1 small bag of mini chocolate chips but couldn’t find any, so I used 1 bag of regular chocolate chips, but chopped them up…and that helped with the texture greatly.
Peanuts – depending on how you like your cookies texture and what style of peanut butter you use, you might want to add more chopped up peanuts. I have decided I will put in about 1/2 cup of chopped peanuts in the next batch.
And lastly, Chocolate Ganache. While having the mini or chopped up chocolate chips helped, I think either dunking the cookies into a chocolate ganache half way (think full moon cookies here), or drizzeling them with chocolate after they cool, will help with that Reese Cup flavor.
Image came from: Fare to Remember