Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies

Last night I tried a twist on a favourite peanut butter cookie recipe.....adding cocoa to the mix to make the cookies chocolate.  They look deceptively like chocolate cookies with m&m's in them......the peanut butter is a  nice surprise when you bite in:)  Normally I would add white chocolate chips to the chocolate cookie dough.....but in this case, I thought the m&m's would look more fun.  It's an easy recipe to remember with pretty basic ingredients.  I can vouch for the goodness of the dough, and unfortunately cannot tell you how many cookies a full recipe should make due to an ample volume of missing dough:)  Don't over bake these and you will have a nice chewy chocolate cookie.
Chocolate PB Surprise Cookies
makes more than 48 cookies

1 cup butter or margarine softened
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup m&m's

Preheat oven to 350F.  Cream, butter, sugars, and peanut butter.  Mix in eggs and vanilla.  Combine all dry ingredients (not the m&m's) and mix into the creamed mixture.  Stir in the m&m's to distribute evenly throughout the dough.  Chill dough in fridge for 30 minutes.  Drop by rounded teaspoonful onto a nonstick pan and bake at 350F for 7-10 minutes.  I bake at 350F in a convection oven for 7 1/2 minutes.  Remove from oven and let set for 3-5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to finish cooling.