The Quintessential, Perfect, World's Best Peanut Butter Cookie

I found this recipe years ago - heaven only knows where by now - and my husband loved it. That said, being the baking perfectionist and peanut butter cookie devotee that he is, he has since improved upon it. Following is the recipe he just emailed to his mother, offering his reasons behind the belief that these are indeed the best peanut butter cookies in the world.

Personally, I don't think they need the chocolate. Furthermore, I don't think they even need to be baked. (This dough is Peanut Butter Heaven on a Spoon.)

But here it is. Merry Christmas, and don't say we never gave you anything. More updates soon!

Jess & the Fam


World's Best and Most Perfect Quintessential Peanut Butter Cookie (makes 4 dozen-ish)

Ingredients

One 9.5 oz. bag of Dove Silky Smooth Dark Chocolate Promises (OPTIONAL!)
1 ¼ Cups of creamy peanut butter
1 Cup of unsalted butter (softened)
1 Cup of granulated sugar
1 Cup of brown sugar
2 Large eggs
3 Cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt (do not omit this)
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat butter, peanut butter, and vanilla in a large bowl. Beat in both sugars. Stir in ½ of dry ingredients, add eggs one by one, beat and mix in remaining ingredients. Place one inch balls on a baking sheet and cross hatch with a fork. Bake for 11 minutes. Remove from oven and add 1 Dove Dark Chocolate Promise to each cookie by gently depressing the chocolate on to the cookie. Place the cookies back in the oven for two more minutes. Remove cookies from oven and immediately transfer to cooling rack with gentle care (I have found using a fork to remove the cookies from the baking sheet to the cooling rack works best. Do not man-handle the cookies at this point or the chocolate may run and lose its shape).

Note: When cross-hatching the cookie, do not flatten out the cookie too much. A thick cookie will keep it soft hours after it has cooled and prevent excessive crunchiness. Plus, you don’t want a lot of peanut butter cookie surrounding the chocolate. A modest lip of cookie surrounding the chocolate after it has baked is what is being sought after here so that each cookie is almost bite-sized (but not quite).

Why I Like This Recipe

Most people will use milk chocolate Hershey’s kisses (I call these people “amateurs”). The milk chocolate makes the cookie too sweet. Also, they add the Hershey’s kiss after the cookies have finished baking. This makes the cookie difficult to bite since the chocolate has never had a chance to begin the melting process and soften. If they do add the kiss during the baking process, the tip of the kiss will burn or over-cook in the oven. I call this a lose-lose scenario. The Dark chocolate dove in this recipe is a uniform square shape, so it covers a good portion of the cookie and will evenly soften during the baking process. The dark chocolate is not excessively sweet. Allowing it to “bake” with the cookie for two minutes starts the melting process but isn’t enough to make the chocolate “runny” (unless the cookie is aggressively handled after baking). This will make the chocolate soft hours after it has cooled. Because the cookie has some thickness to it and has not quite browned in the oven, it retains its baked shape and is cooked through, though it will remain soft long after it has cooled. The result – a soft, melt-in-your mouth marriage of chocolate and peanut butter in a perfectly balanced, nearly bite-sized bite.