Lighter Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies - 12 Days of Cookies - Day 1

It has been a crazy weekend!  Christmas events and a lot of baking and cookie packaging.   I just finished the packaging of my green box cookie order. Photos to come), and I spent the day baking.  We made four different kinds of cookies, all of which you will soon see in my new holiday series - 12 DAYS of COOKIES!! Today is Day 1.   From now until Christmas I am going to make sure I blog about 12 cookie recipes. These days will not be on consecutive days.  Life is a bit too busy and quite frankly I can't decide on some recipes. Too many magazines and cookbooks to sort through.  But I promise there will be 12 before December 25th.  On the posting of the very last cookie,  I will also have a GIVEAWAY!!!   So keep watching for all the cookies and watch out for lucky number 12.

Day 1 - Lighter Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies.
This cookie goes first as it also uses leftover Halloween candy - Reese's peanut butter cups - my little secret inside.  The recipe has been brought to you from Cooks Illustrated - Light Recipes.  I love cooks illustrated and I love that they have tried to make some recipes a little bit healthier.  Now I guess it seems like a bit of an oxymoron to take a light recipe and then stuff it with a peanut butter cup, doesn't it?   I like to think this justifies the opportunity to eat a cookie and peanut butter cup all in one day with less guilt.  It is like a regular peanut butter cookie in terms of calories but kicked up a notched.   Right?  Alright I will skip law school and stick to baking.

Enjoy Day 1

(Adapted from Cooks Illustrated)
INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose  (6 1/4 ounces)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8 tbsp unsalted butter , melted and cooled
• 2 large egg
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2  cup packed dark brown sugar
• 4 tbsp light peanut butter
• 18 Reese's peanut butter cups

INSTRUCTIONS
1) Preheat oven to 350F.   Line two baking sheets with parchment or silpat.
2) . In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together

3)  In a large bowl, whisk together the butter, egg, and vanilla. Add the brown sugar and peanut butter and combine until smooth and lump free. 

4) Fold in the flour mixture until combined.

5) Using a mini ice cream scoop, make 12 mounds on of the pieces of parchment.   Top each mound with a peanut butter cup and gently press down.   Top the peanut butter cup with another mini scoop.  Press down the top mound with a fork and work to combine the edges of each scoop so that the peanut butter cup is hidden. 

5)  Bake the cookies until the edges are light golden and center appears just set, about 13-15 minutes,  rotating halfway through baking. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets or 5 minutes, transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. 

Cooks illustrated told me not to use light peanut butter, but I did anyway because that is all I have in my house. I always bake with it.  These were still really great.  For the little peanut butter they had they still had strong PB flavour.  I don't think you would really ever know they were lighter.  They were soft and chewy with the perfect center of sweetness.

Seriously though, when are cookies not good when stuffed with chocolate bars?   What is your favorite cookie stuffing??

MEG's RATING: D-EEEEE-LICIOUS