Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies

Who bakes for their own graduation party? Oh yea, that would be me. But let's be serious, I'm obviously not complaining. My mom gets to pay for all the ingredients and I get to go crazy and bake for 30+ people. Yup, perfect. These deserts will probably span multiple posts just so it's easier to categorize of course :)

I knew I wanted to make a cupcake and a cookie and possibly something else. Let's start with the cookie since it's super easy and super delicious. It's actually just a variation on the peanut butter cookie that was used with the chocolate covered candied bacon. Since there's no guarantee that everyone would like the ridiculousness of chocolate covered candied bacon, I opted for a simple chocolate chunk instead. I was telling my super-fantastically-awesome boyfriend that I loved the peanut butter cookie, but I just wasn't a huge fan of bacon (surprising that I baked with it then, right? Guess I must really like the other people in my life :) ). Well anyway we decided that it would be awesome with just chocolate, or maybe Reese's cups chopped up? That will be for my next experimentation. I went with the chocolate for this one.

I bought a 12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and chopped them up even smaller so it would create large pieces as well as small pieces and when it becomes a fine powder, it mixes in with the batter for some yummy chocolate surprises. This is usually why I chop up my M&M's in any recipe. Using them whole would be fine too. It's also possible to purchase chocolate chunks in the baking isle. I also went with creamy peanut butter and dark brown sugar for this recipe as a change up. Delicious, of course...

Now on to the recipe...

Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars together with a mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, mixing until combined. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until a firm dough forms. Chop up chocolate chips and fold into batter. Drop large tablespoons of batter onto baking sheet and cook for 10-12 minutes. This made about 30 smaller sized cookies.

The dark brown sugar gives an added richness to the cookie, and you can barely tell it has peanut butter in it. But it's surely delicious! And they look super cute too

Enjoy :)