Peanut Butter Cookies

My Mom's birthday was October 8 and I am always grappling with what should I get her. She is your mom, so you want to give her something special and something that makes her feel appreciated for all the things she does for you. However; when you get to a certain age, everything has been done. Flowers, perfume, clothes, and even a mixed MOM CD have already been done. So I was thinking and thinking, until it finally hit me. The way you show someone you love them is to cook for them. So I decided to make these cookies for her and send them home in a care package. Again, I got this recipe from allrecipies.com but did not follow the recipe exactly. You can probably see a pattern forming here. I use the recipe as a loose guide to cooking, improvising as I go.


INGREDIENTS

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk

40 miniature chocolate covered peanut butter cups, unwrapped

DIRECTIONS

1.) Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
2.) Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda; set aside.

3.)Cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and milk. Add the flour mixture; mix well.

4.) Shape into 40 balls and place each into an ungreased mini muffin pan.

5.) Bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into each ball. Cool and carefully remove from pan.

These cookies turned out really well but do not make 40 cookies like the recipe says. I made 24 cookies with this batter. I made the following deviations from the recipe: chunky peanut butter instead of creamy (Life needs a little crunch, right?) and 2 TBL of heavy cream instead of milk (I had heavy cream on hand from the pie I made earlier and the "correct substitution" for milk is 1 part heavy cream 1 part water but whatever they are COOKIES!). I also, did not have little baby muffin tins (umm who does?) so I just rolled little cookie dough balls and put them on a cookie sheet. I did everything the same except I baked them for 7 min, stick in a PB cup into the cookie and then bake again for 1 minute to melt the cup a little. But if you like peanut butter cookies and peanut butter cups, these cookies are for you. Very Yummy.

Minor anecdote: My oven started to smoke halfway though my cooking process, filling my entire apartment. The cookies did not burn, sooooo I am unsure if my oven can handle lots of cooking in one night or maybe something spilled and was burning. So that is a mystery.


http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Peanut-Butter-Cup-Cookies/Detail.aspx