Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

It’s hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo!  These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!

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It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo! These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!Can we talk about college classes for a minute?  Most of my classes met either 2 or 3 times a week.  The 2/week classes would meet for ~75 minutes (if I remember correctly), and I used to think that was the worst!  How am I going to make it through an hour and 15 minutes!?!  That’s where the crossword puzzle in the student newspaper came in handy!  Hah.  In hindsight, that’s nothing.  I now spend at least 30 minutes in the evening just feeding Robbie dinner.  

And those 3/week classes?  50 minutes.  That’s hardly enough time to even get a class started!  When I was teaching Latin, we got ~45/50 minutes per class, and I remember really having to be on my game in order to get through my lesson plan each day.  I can’t imagine trying to teach a college course in just 45 minute blocks of time.

It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo! These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!Fast forward to grad school, and courses always met for 3 hours once a week.  3 hours is a long haul, but I was ok with it since I commuted ~1.5 hours each way to campus.  I’d usually try to time my courses so that I could knock out at least 2 on one trip.

And honestly, the 3-hour courses weren’t that bad because the topics were so much more interesting.  Well, except for that advanced stats class.  That one was not interesting.  But the History of Higher Education in America?  Oh man, I loved that course!  Tons (as in hundreds of pages a week) of reading, but it was well worth it.

It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo! These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!The nice thing about the 3 hour courses is our professors would often give us a break somewhere in between.  That’s when one my buddies and I would make a mad dash to one of the coffee shops in downtown Athens.  We’d grab a large coffee and head back to class ready to go again.  But then I discovered the cookies.  This coffee shop had the most amazing cookies!  And by amazing cookies, I mean biggest cookies ever.  Easily as big as my hand…if not my face.

If I was feeling particularly good about my workout from that morning, then I’d wander over to the case with the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies.  These were huge peanut butter cookies embedded with chunks of peanut butter cup…like an entire peanut butter cup.  Nothing got you ready for the 2nd half of a long class like a chocolate peanut butter cup cookie…of course, sometimes they put me into a sugar coma.  But that’s what the coffee was for!

It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo! These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!I was reminiscing about those grad school classes the other day, so I decided to relive them…through cookies of course!  I mean, I could have pulled out some journal articles and read those for fun.  But nah, eating cookies is way more fun than reading journal articles, right?  I used my go-to peanut butter cookie recipe and then pressed some chopped peanut butter cups into the top of each cookie before baking.  The result?  Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies…also known as cookie perfection.  Enjoy!

It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo! These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!

It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo! These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

It's hard to beat the chocolate + peanut butter combo!  These Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are a favorite around here!
Print Pin Rate
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 24 cookies
Calories: 208kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350°F.
  • Using a countertop mixer, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy (~3-4 minutes on medium speed).
  • Add peanut butter; mix until well combined.
  • Add eggs and vanilla extract; mix until well combined.
  • Using a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add dry ingredients to mixer bowl; mix dough just comes together (~1-2 minutes).
  • Divide dough into balls ~2 Tbsp in size.
  • Roll dough balls in sugar and place on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Flatten each cookie slightly with the palm of your hand. Gently push chopped peanut butter cups into cookies.
  • Bake at 350°F for 12-14 minutes, or until edges of cookies just begin to turn brown.
  • Remove from oven. Let cookies cool slightly before transferring to a cooling rack.

This Reese's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake features a rich, moist chocolate cake covered in a decadent peanut butter frosting. Garnish with chopped peanut butter cups for a delicious dessert!Looking for more chocolate + peanut butter fun?  How about a slice of this Reese’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake?  It’s intense…in a very, very good way!

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24 Comments

    1. Haha…thanks, Dawn! I would totally offer to save you one of these cookies…but, well, they didn’t last long at all around here. These cookies are crazy good!! 🙂

  1. Hubby and I were reminiscing the other day about our university days. Though it was a good time, I’m glad it’s done. Some of those classes were brutal, i.e. dragged out and uninteresting. Though, I did love economics!

    Can’t beat chocolate and peanut butter! Such a classic combo! So funny, eating a cookie after your workout. Then again, I always say I work out because I love to eat, lol. Pinning these, David!

    Have a great weekend, my friend 🙂

    1. Yeah, I kinda miss some of my college courses. I do love learning…but then again, I definitely don’t miss some of those classes, either. I guess that’s the nice thing about loving to cook…there’s always something new to learn in the kitchen! 🙂 Thanks, Dawn!!

    1. Hah! You are totally right, Tonya. Some of those days I just didn’t want to make the long drive over to Athens…but then I remembered the cookies! 🙂 Thank you so much, my friend!

  2. Hi David! I have used the same peanut butter cookie recipe for fifty years. A few years ago I had some mini Reeses so instead of flattening the cookie dough balls with a fork I pushed peanut butter cups down into the center of each and that’s the way I’ve made them ever since! They aren’t big, only about 2-1/2″, so if you bite just right you get a piece of the peanut butter in every bite! Now I want cookies! 🙂 Have a great weekend!

    1. 50 years of the same peanut butter cookie recipe? That must be one killer recipe, Dorothy! I still haven’t shared my plain peanut butter cookie recipe…maybe I’ll get around to that soon. Or if you’re willing to share, I’d be happy to use your peanut butter cookie recipe for that post! Either way! 🙂

      I hope you and Gary had an awesome weekend…and I hope cookies were involved!!

  3. OMGEEE – I so agree – “eating cookies is way more fun than reading journal articles” ANYDAY – especially when said cookies are filled with chocolate peanut butter cups! Ok – so, I have to know – what was the name of the bakery in Athens with the humungous cookies? Coffe+Caffeine are Godsends eh?! And, did y’all try Jittery Joes when y’all were there?
    Hope y’all have a wonderful weekend – and, I’m dusting off my drone – so pretty please keep those kitchen windows cracked!

    1. Haha! Thanks, Shashi. Heck, you know what…eating cookies is more fun than pretty much anything else I can imagine. And these cookies are totally legit. As in they were right up there on my list of favorite cookies…of all time! 🙂

      Funny that you mention Jittery Joe’s…because that’s totally the coffee shop that I was referring to here! I had forgotten the name, but I went and looked it up on the map b/c I knew where it was. And it’s totally Jittery Joe’s! 🙂

      Hope you guys had an awesome weekend down there!! Tell Lil Shashi I have some cookies waiting for her up here…when she comes to move into college. 🙂

    1. Thank you so much, Puja! Do you have any snacks/meals that remind you of your college days? These cookies totally took me back a couple of years! 🙂 And by the way, these cookies are amazing…be careful if you make a batch because they will magically disappear!

  4. When I was a student, our university had a complicated schedule for its students due to renovation works and, as a result, not having enough available classes. During a year or so there were 3 “shifts” of the classes, and one term my group was lucky enough to had the 3rd “shift” – evening and night classes, something in between 3 and 8 p.m. However one or two days per week we had classes up to 11 p.m or so. Besides, that term happened to be in September – December when the evenings were…hm so refreshing and dark. Could you imagine my excitement? Well, the good point was that I didn’t need to wake up early:) Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to buy these delicious cookies – I guess my night classes wouldn’t have been so miserable with a few cookies. And you are so right – nothing could beat the combo of peanut butter and chocolate. Wait, what about lavender haha?:)

    1. Wait…you drew the short stick there, Ben! The late round of classes…AND during the dark months of Sept-Dec. That would have been so depressing getting out of class in the pitch dark of night. Too bad there wasn’t a guy standing outside of your classroom selling lavender cookies to hungry college students! Wait, maybe you can go back to your college and be that guy!! 🙂

    1. Haha! It’s really difficult to beat a good coffee + cookie…especially at about that 4pm time in the afternoon when it’s not quite time to wrap up the day, but you are most definitely ready to call it quits. That’s the perfect time for a coffee + cookie combo! And bonus points if the cookie is one of these Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies! 🙂 Thanks so much for commenting, Bun!

  5. Aww, you are bringing back some fond memories of undergrad and grad school. We used to have cookie break at Clemson, but the cookies of course weren’t anything close to these homemade cookies. However, at the time they were a heavenly treat. 🙂 In grad school I graduated to a more sophisticated dessert, glazed croissants from Bi-Lo. Classy. LOL! Love this recipe. These cookies look so soft and a peanut butter cup pressed in the center? Sinful!

    1. Glazed croissants!? I clearly missed out during my grad school experience, Tamara! On the other hand, you learned something I see. You graduated from cookies to croissants as you moved from undergrad to grad…that’s most definitely a sign of learning! Haha! 🙂 These cookies are incredible…they disappeared in no time flat around here. In fact, maybe you should go back and start selling these at Clemson…sounds like they need a good cookie source!

  6. I absolutely LOVED my history of ed class. It was all about social injustice and how we got to where we are, and I’m still in touch with that professor. It’s been 17 years, but I don’t care. I’ll be in touch with him forever.
    And I hear ya on the class times. I teach a hybrid, so some of my classes are 45 and some are 90. 45 minutes for English is just not enough time!
    I would have bought these every day regardless of my workout, so there you go. They look amazing!

    1. What a great story, Mir! I love that you still chat with your professor 17 years later. I stayed in touch with a couple of my professors for a while…but I’ve slowly lost touch. I need to reach back out! Maybe I’ll reach back out with a big plate of these cookies in one hand. 🙂 Hope you had an amazing weekend!

  7. You’re right, it’s hard to top the chocolate + peanut butter flavor combo! And that cake looks sinful & amazing! This post just reminded me of the once a week classes I had in college that were like 3 hours long… Sometimes it was TOUGH, especially one semester when I took a class that met on Mondays from 7:45 – 10:30 PM. It was torturous starting off the week with such a long, boring night class, and I used to check out Monday Night Football half the class to make the time pass! Ha.

    1. Oh yeah, those 3 hour night courses were the worst!! I think I had one of those in grad school, and I couldn’t wait for that semester to wrap up. I can’t imagine doing that on a Monday, too. I would most definitely have needed lots and lots of cookies to get through that class! (That and Monday Night Football playing on my phone in my lap…haha!) Thanks, Nicole…hope you guys had a great weekend!

    1. Why thank you so much, Muna! 🙂 And yes, I absolutely think you can make these cookies…they really aren’t that difficult at all. The hard part is not eating them all. Haha! I appreciate your comment!

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