Christmas Notebook

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies are easy to make. I do them every year for our open house. There are several people who always ask if I’m going to make them.

Use any peanut butter cookie recipe. Spoon small amounts (probably about 2 teaspoonfuls) into small 1 3/4″ muffin tins that have been sprayed with Pam. Don’t over fill. If the dough bakes over the top of the tin, the cookie will be difficult to remove from the muffin tin.

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 350. Nine minutes is just right in my oven. As soon as they are removed from the oven, press a small peanut butter cup into the center. I usually use the Wal-Mart brand that comes in a little bag. There are about 36-37 cups in a bag. This year, there were none when we shopped for them, so we bought the Reese’s brand (which are better tasting, anyway).

You can use store bought refrigerator cookie dough for this recipe, which is what I do. To get it out of the tube easily, cut the wrapping with a knife and, on each end, go all the way down to the opposite side. That makes it easy to slide the dough out of the wrapper without leaving dough stuck to the ends. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but there is no need to slice into the dough. Just cut through the wrapper.

Slice the dough into 12 slices and divide each slice into four pieces. If using more than one roll of dough, store the addition rolls in the refridgerator until needed. If left on the counter at room temperature, the dough gets soft quickly which makes it harder to work with.

You don’t have to roll the dough into balls or smoosh it down or anything else. Just drop it into well greased muffin tins.

After adding the peanut butter cups, leave the cookies in the tins to cool. The dough is soft and fragile while warm. If they are removed immediately, the cookies fall apart.

When cool, I gently slide a small frosting spatula along the edge of the cups to loosen them.

At this point, I freeze the cookies until time to serve. Before the open house, I will thaw them and drizzle them with melted almond bark (vanilla) and decorate with chocolate sprinkles. You could use red and/or green candy melts to drizzle over the tops and decorate with candy sprinkles. Or drizzle with melted chocolate and sprinkle with chopped peanuts…lots of ways to decorate them. Or leave them plain!

Wal-Mart sells mint cups that are similar to the peanut butter cups and I like to use them with sugar cookie dough.

Delicious and very easy to make! ~~Rhonda