We talked about how the lack of family traditions in my family has led me to some supper yummy new recipes, like this one for Lemon Ginger Sandwich Cookies. But, after contemplating my deprived childhood for a while, I realized that I cannot remember a holiday season when we didn’t bake reese’s peanut butter cup cookies. While I can’t say that our family has been making them for hundreds of years, I can say that we’ve been making them for almost 30, so we might be straying into “tradition” territory here.
I have to warn you, before I go any further, just so that you know what you’re dealing with, that I am a complete hypocrite. I was just telling my husband today that I hate “recipes” that start with a cake mix, or a package of oreos. If you’re going to go through the trouble of making something, you might as well actually make it. Is ripping open a box of cake mix that much easier than measuring out a couple of cups of flour and a teaspoon of salt/baking soda? These words actually came out of my mouth. You guys, it wasn’t two sentences later that I started talking about these cookies…featuring reese’s peanut butter cups. Like I said, hypocrite. Sort of like how I am secretly thrilled whenever someone brings that velveeta cheese dip to a potluck! (Although, I have been wanting to try this homemade cheesy chili dip from pinch of yum!)
So, time to lay of the hypocrisy and get right to it, these cookies are ahhh-mazing (Everybody knows that! Are we in a geico commercial?), and I am pretty sure they are frequent visitors on Christmas cookie plates throughout the country. Just in case you are one of the poor unfortunate souls who has not tried tried them, heres the deal: besides being awesome, there’s really not a whole lot going on here. This recipe is adapted from the one on the back of the Jif jar (although these days I usually just natural peanut butter, which works fine). I also use butter instead of crisco, because well, crisco grosses me out. Finally, and I’m not sure if I’m committing some heinous Christmas cookie sin here, I don’t even use real Reese’s peanut butter cups any more. I prefer the peanut butter cups from Trader Joes, they are creamier with a better peanut-y/less sickeningly sweet flavor. The only problem is getting them to last until the cookies come out of the oven…
So, give the people what they want this year…peanut butter cup cookies!
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 package peanut butter cups (unwrapped and ready to go)
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit
- In a large bowl, cream together butter, peanut butter, and brown sugar. Add milk, vanilla, and egg and beat until well combined. Stir in salt and baking soda. Add flour and stir until just combined.
- Divide dough into heaping tablespoon sized balls, roll together between your hands and place in a mini muffin tin.
- Bake for about 12-15 minutes until the edges of the cookies just start to brown. Remove from the oven and immediately press an unwrapped peanut butter cup into each cookie. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Good call on using trader joe’s pb cups – Reese’s has become too sweet for my taste these days.
I agree, they are waaaaay too sweet! But those ones from Trader Joe’s…dangerous! 🙂