Ohhhh cookies. Oh life. I've been perusing the CIA's website for hours, trying to decide if I really want to dive into this cooking/baking realm of life. Can I make a living out of it? Can I get through 4 years of intensive (and expensive) cooking school, states away from my home? Possibly the furthest away I've ever been alone? The northern Midwest section of America has been my little globe for such a long time. We're talking Hyde Park, NY, now; and possibly some crazy educational trips to Europe for school.
Every fiber of my practical being rebels against this. Usually, that's enough. But I'm so darned convinced that this is my calling, I can't get anything else into my brain.
Enough of that though! Just the worries and thoughts of an undergraduate, no biggie. For everyone else, anyway. Bear with me, it helps a bit to write these things down.
Enough of that though! Just the worries and thoughts of an undergraduate, no biggie. For everyone else, anyway. Bear with me, it helps a bit to write these things down.
Look at these little guys, they're so adorable and excessively addictive. I received an 11 oz. bag of them in my stocking, and my first thought was not of my gluttonous happiness, but these cookies. And I love Reese's, with a passion. But I had to make these cookies, I wanted to share the peanut butter chocolate love. Sharing and giving=Christmas. Doy.
I am so, so glad that I wasn't a selfish hog. These are one of my all-time favorite cookies. Oddly enough, cookies are one of my least favorite things to make. Perhaps because my particular self takes awhile to arrange equally-sized and evenly-spaced blobs on a baking sheet. But whatever, these are worth every effort (which, in effect, isn't much).
New Year's is looming ahead, and frankly, I'm ready to embrace it. Despite my doubts about careers, anxiety about finding a good restaurant job, the possible annual resurfacing of some unpleasant memories, and a forthcoming ACT (or SAT...dunno); I'm ready. 2011 can be over, it's had its time.
I'm excited to delve deeper into my foodie aspirations, scrounge up material for this blog that will hopefully only grow, and just enjoy life. That last one seems to be said loosely, but it holds a lot of meaning for me. I tend to get sucked into my worries, but once in awhile I'll find myself just being me. I find myself genuinely enjoying life, without trying to! I want to be doing much more of that. This past year was a little crazy, and not at all what I had thought it would be. It's okay though, I learned a lot. You know how decisions seem super difficult one minute, and then so insignificant the next? I've realized that it's all just a part of life that will end, and you do move on. And yet, we fret. That's just how it goes.
One of my favorite movies is Dan in Real Life, and this is my favorite quote from it:
“I want to talk to you about the subject of plans… life plans and how we
all make them, and how we hope that our kids make good, smart, safe
plans of their own. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, most of
our plans don’t work out as we’d hoped. So instead of asking our young
people, ‘What are your plans? What do you plan to do with your life?’, maybe we should tell them this: Plan… to be surprised.”
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
Yield: 16-18 large cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
- 6 tbsp. Dutch-process cocoa
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. coarse salt
- 3/4 stick (6 tbsp.) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp. creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp. milk
- 2 cups coarsely chopped peanut butter cups, divided
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa
powder, baking soda, and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer,
combine the butter, peanut butter, and sugars. Beat on medium-high
speed until light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Add in the egg, vanilla
extract, and milk. Blend until smooth. With the mixer on low speed,
mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Add in 1½ cups of
the chopped peanut butter cups and fold in gently with a spatula.
Use a large dough scoop (about 3 tbsp., although I preffered to do about 2 1/2 tbsp. to get a bigger yield and smaller cookies) to drop rounds of dough onto the baking sheets, spacing 2-3 inches apart. Gently press a few pieces of the reserved peanut butter cups into the top of each of the dough balls.
Bake 12-14 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. (The cookies may seem too soft immediately after coming out of the oven but they will set as they cool. You don’t want to overbake them.) Let cool on the baking sheets about 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
Sources: Annie's Eats
