Peanut Butter Cookies With Reese's Chips

The other day, I was at the grocery store in the baking aisle, one of my usual haunts, and saw the Reese's Peanut Butter Chips. For all my love of Reese's, do you know, I'd never actually tried their peanut butter chips?

So I bought them, because I could not let such a thing continue. It's interesting because I feel like nothing you make can quite taste like the peanut butter in an actual Reese's candy. And these chips are the same, they don't taste like that, but they do taste a bit like their Reese's Pieces.

And in a cookie? Especially a cookie warm from the oven? Oh. My. God. SO GOOD. I was thinking oh these will just be okay, but then I took a bite and was in rich, peanut buttery heaven. I mean these are still good after they've cooled down completely, but when they're still warm? I was amazed.

Seriously, if you like peanut butter, I would make these as soon as possible. As a note, I used natural salted peanut butter rather than something like a Skippy or Jif. Those are a bit more sugary, so they might make these extra sweet if you use them instead of a natural peanut butter. And you can try these with just regular peanut butter chips, but I could tell these had a distinct Reese's Pieces flavor, particularly when warm, so if you can I would try it with these special chips as well.

Go on, indulge yourself!

Peanut Butter Cookies with Reese's Chips

Makes 2 Dozen
Ingredients

• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup Reese's Peanut Butter Chips

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F. In a large bowl, beat together the brown sugar, peanut butter, butter, and egg on medium speed until creamy. On low speed, mix in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir in the peanut butter chips.
2. Shape the dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, and dip the top of the balls in the granulated sugar. Place the dough, sugar side up, on your baking sheet about 3 inches apart. No need to flatten.
3. Bake for 9-10 minutes until light brown. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Recipe via Betty Crocker 

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Banana Bread

I hear tell that some people like sandwiches made with peanut butter and bananas. To me, that just sounds, you know, gross. Grossy gross gross. But then, I am not a huge fan of bananas by themselves. Mixed up in things, sure. Eating a banana straight up? Egads.

Even so, the idea of mixing bananas with peanut butter and Reese's peanut butter cups all in a bread form? Somehow that makes sense. Don't try to figure that out, brains are just weird that way.

I had high hopes for this bread, and I suspect they were not entirely met because I put in a touch too much peanut butter in the batter. Peanut butter in the batter - say that ten times fast. Butter batter, batter butter, butter batter butter batter butter butter batter.

Ahem. Back to the bread. I also suspect this would've been better had I actually been able to find those itty bitty mini Reese's in the local Von's (that's the Safeway equivalent for those not in SoCal), but as the local Von's has an extremely limited candy selection, it was not meant to be. Nonetheless, it is a bread that has grown on me over time. I'm not sure if this is a fact about banana breads in general, but they seem to be better after you let them sit. Am I making this up? It's possible I am, but I swear maybe I've heard that before? Whatevs!

The point is - if you are one of those Elvis types who likes peanut butter and banana sandwiches, you'll probably like this bread. Get to it.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Banana Bread
(via Cookies & Cups)

3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz bag of Reese’s Mini cups (or approx 20 chopped up small cups)

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease your loaf pan with butter or shortening.

In a medium bowl whisk together your flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In a large bowl stir together your bananas, peanut butter, oil, egg and sugars.

Pour your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Batter will be lumpy. Embrace the lumpiness.

Fold in your Reese’s Mini cups (or chopped up small cups) and spread batter into prepared pan.

Bake for approx 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then loosen the edges of the pan with a knife and remove from loaf pan, transferring bread to a cooling rack.

In photos:

Since I could not find the mini Reese's at the local grocery store, I got some regular small cups and just cut them up. I used about 20.

Full confession time: not all 3 of my bananas were super ripe. I had one in the freezer from ages ago, plus two newish ones. I stuck the two newish ones in a paper bag with an apple to get them to soften up some.

Bananas, egg, oil, sugars and peanut butter mixin' it up. I think I put in a touch too much peanut butter. I was going the guesstimate route, as I hate having to clean out a measuring cup with peanut butter gunk on it.

Mix in your dry ingredients. Dough-y!

Fold in your Reese's.

Put it in your loaf pan. I think mine is 9x5inches. This would be better in an 8x4, but it's okay.

Bake it up!

Let it sit for a few, then run a knife around the edges. Plop it out and let it cool some more.

Whoops, mine went droopy in the middle! Didn't cook it quite long enough, but I hate nothing more than a dry bread, so I'd prefer a little droop than that!

Reese's Dessert Bars

Okay, confession. These are not baked. These are not even from scratch.

These are, in fact, from a... box! What!

This box, in fact. A Reese's Dessert Bar Mix. That is extremely, extremely easy, and just shy of extremely tasty. I'm not going to lie here, these aren't the greatest, most scrumptious dessert bars in the world. They're missing that extra little something. But, hey, when you only need some water and butter, I'm not complaining.

Also? I love Reese's. It's a fact. Except that I don't really like regular Reese's as much anymore, I like the eggs and the hearts and the trees and all of the various specialty offerings during holidays. More peanut butter equals more better.

Shush, I know that's not correct grammar.

In any event, really, I took some photos of the process anyway, in case there were curiosity cats out there.  Off we go...

You add some melty butter to the crust mix. It's some kind of chocolately stuff, a bit like crushed up oreos.

Press that into the tray they provide. Yes. They even provide a tray! How easy!

Mix in some more melty butter with the peanut butter stuff and the filling mix, which I took to be some combo of flour and sugar, to give it some consistency.

Add that onto the crust layer.

Meanwhile, you'll have put the topping bag in a bowl of hot water to make it easily pourable. Pour it onto the top. I had to use a frosting knife thing to smooth it all around evenly. This appears to just be straight melted milk chocolate. Though it must have something else in it to keep it liquid. Hmm.

After you've put it in the fridge for about a half hour, you can cut into the bars. They then recommend that you keep them covered and refrigerated. 

Like I said, not bad, but not wonderfully splendiferous by any means. They aren't quite... sweet enough. I think that's it. Maybe if I added a touch of powdered sugar to the peanut butter mixture. Hmm. Or I could just make my homemade peanut butter balls, which are nearly the same thing! I was just hoping the peanut butter middle would be a little more like the peanut butter middle of peanut butter cups, but it's not quite. So close, but so far...

Reese's Cheesecake Bars

When I first saw the recipe for these over on the Tasty Kitchen blog, it was like two halves of my heart had been finally made whole. Cheesecake! Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! In an easy to make bar form! What in the world, how had I never thought of this before?!

 

I'd been wanting to make these for a while, and today decided to go for it, even though yesterday I really felt like crap most of the day and the thought of food was a little quease-inducing. But nothing will separate me from my Reese's Cheescake Bars! I'll probably be bringing them to work, because no one person should eat that much delicious saturated fat. Alas, the woes of life. Without further ado...

Reese's Cheesecake Bars

Ingredients:

• 7 whole Graham Crackers, Broken Into 1-inch Pieces
• 6 Tablespoons (3/4 Stick) Unsalted Butter, Melted And Cooled
• 3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
• ⅛ teaspoons Salt
• 2 packages (8 Oz. Each) Cream Cheese, Softened
• ⅔ cups Granulated Sugar
• 2 whole Large Eggs
• ¼ cups Sour Cream
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 12 whole (0.75 Oz Each) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Divided, Cut Into 6 Pieces Each
• 2 ounces, weight Bittersweet Chocolate, Chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Prepare an 8-inch square baking pan by lining the pan with aluminum foil, leaving 3-4 inches of foil draping over the sides of the pan.

The crust:
Place graham crackers into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the crackers form fine crumbs, about 30 seconds. To the crumbs, add butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt. Pulse until the ingredients are fully combined. Using the bottom of a measuring cup or your fingers, press the crumbs into the bottom of the prepared pan.

Bake until the crust is beginning to brown, about 12 to 15 minutes. Let the crust cool on a cooling rack for about 30 minutes.

The filling:
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until it is very smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape the beaters and sides of bowl frequently. Gradually beat in granulated sugar until the mixture is combined, about 1 minute. Beat in eggs, one a time, making sure that each is fully incorporated. Beat in sour cream and vanilla extract until fully combined, about 30 seconds.

Unwrap and cut 9 Reese’s peanut butter cups (0.75 ounce each) into 6 pieces. Gently fold into the cream cheese mixture. Scrape the cream cheese mixture into the baking pan, over the top of the cooled crust. Spread evenly.

Bake until the edges are set but the middle still jiggles slightly when the pan is shaken slightly, about 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.

Place the pan on a cooling rack and allow the bars to cool for 2 hours. Cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, and up to 24 hours.

Using the overhanging foil, lift the bars from the pan. Gently remove the foil and cut into 16 bars.

Place bittersweet chocolate in a small bowl. Microwave on 50% power until melted, stirring every 15 seconds. Drizzle the chocolate over the bars, top each with a small chunk of a Reese’s peanut butter cup and serve.  (I didn't do this last step, as I may or may not have eaten a bunch of the Reese's earlier in the week, and didn't feel the need to add the extra chocolate.)

 If you don't have a food processor, like me, here's how you can achieve these crunched up graham crackers. Stick them in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin! If you don't have a rolling pin, also like me? Improvise with something else. I used the thing of salt. Not a salt shaker, but one of the large things a bunch of salt comes in. Works just as well.

Important when baking? Reading directions. Because I skimmed and thought I read 3/4 CUP butter, when it actually said 3/4 STICK butter. Major oops. I added some more graham crackers and had to bake it for longer than listed. Seems to have turned out okay enough, thankfully.

After the bottom has baked. Yours may look a little different if you actually put in the correct amount of butter!!

While the crust is sitting for 30 minutes, I cut up the Reese's. 

And when there was about 15 minutes left, I started on the filling. This is just the cream cheese after it's been beaten for a while.

Once the sugar is added. It's a little fluffy at this point.

I had photos from all the different steps with the filling, but it really just looked the same. White, liquidy. So here it is with the Reese's bits added in.

Yep, I forgot to take a picture after I added the filling into the pan, so here it is in the oven. It fills very close to the top!

Here it is fresh out of the oven. Now here's where all of the waiting begins. First you have to let this sit out for two hours. THEN you have to put it in the fridge for at least three hours before you can eat it! So much waiting!

But! Finally! It's ready! Lift it out of the pan by the foil and unwrap it, stick it on a plate. Slice into it and enjoy.

Sorry it's not the sharpest. I was impatient and don't have a fancy camera. 

I cut into this when it was just three hours into the fridge, and it was barely cold, so I'd definitely recommend waiting a little bit longer. I thought I'd be over the moon for this since I love cheesecake and I love Reese's, but I don't know, it didn't wow me as much as I thought it would. I guess maybe I have been spoiled by the light fluffiness of The Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes that this was a little too heavy for my tastes. It's also my first try at any sort of cheesecake ever, so I guess I should just be happy it turned out as well as it did!