Peanut Butter Cookies

At 10:19pm I was craving cookies.

(I was working so obviously I wanted to do anything but.)

What kind of cookies though? Well that really depended on what I had in the kitchen at the time. 

I had a bag of these in the freezer...

... and I had just enough peanut butter too so I decided on Peanut Butter Cookies.

I pretty much made up the recipe as I went along, so it could've turned out horribly wrong. But thankfully it didnt. 

New recipes go into a trusty recipe book my friend Susie gave me for my birthday last year. 

Once the cookie dough is ready, a cookie scoop will make things a whole lot simpler and will make it easier to get your cookies to be the same size and shape. If you don't have one though, just use a tablespoon to portion out the dough. 

I don't like to bake too many cookies all at once. I think you'll agree cookies are always better freshly baked. So at this stage, I like to freeze the raw portioned cookie dough. Once it has frozen, I store it in Ziploc bags so I have it at the ready to bake cookies whenever I feel like it.

For the cookies you are baking, flatten the dough slightly with a fork...

... and then pop the baking tray in the freezer for 10 minutes.

When the dough has chilled, move the tray straight from the freezer to the oven, and you'll have freshly baked, warm, rich, peanutty, buttery, chocolate chippy cookies in no time.

(Excuse the photographs. I was baking at night and my kitchen doesn't have great light even during the day.)

Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

½ tsp baking soda

3 oz butter

2 tablespoons peanut butter (I used smooth but you can use crunchy if you want)

¼ cup caster sugar

⅓ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

¾ cup peanut butter & milk chocolate morsels (or any kind of chocolate chips)

1. Preheat the oven to 180⁰C (350⁰F).
2. Line a baking tray with a Silpat, or grease the baking tray and line it with wax paper.
3. Sift together the flour and baking soda and set aside.
4. In a mixing bowl, add the butter, peanut butter and sugars. Beat with an electric mixer until light and creamy.
5. Beat in the egg with mixer on slow speed. 
6. Add the vanilla and half the flour mixture and beat until combined.
7. Using a large metal spoon, mix in the remaining flour and the chocolate chips. 
8. Drop tablespoons of the cookie mixture onto a baking tray.
9. Flatten the cookie dough slightly with a fork or with the tips of your fingers and place the baking tray in the freezer for 10 minutes to allow the dough to chill.
10. Remove from freezer and bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until the cookies are lightly brown around the edges.
11. Remove the baking tray from the oven and allow the cookies to cool in the tray for 5 to 10 minutes before placing on a wire rack to cool completely. 

Makes approx. 24 cookies.