With the crazy schedule I’ve been having for the better part of a month, it was a relief that I was finally able to get some time in the kitchen once again. Friday morning, I woke up looking forward to the recipe I was going to be making. It was a recipe that I had my eye on for quite some time. Unfortunately, when it came time to actually make the cookies, I realized a little too late that I had forgotten to add a key ingredient.

The Peanut Butter cookies out of the Magnolia Bakery book had been catching my eye for sometime. I love peanut butter and I love a peanut butter cookie. So when this recipe finally came up in the rotation, I was ecstatic! In addition to peanut butter, the recipe calls for peanut butter chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, Reese’s pieces, and a skimpy amount of crushed peanuts.

I rushed to the grocery store to get more peanut butter (I hate when there isn’t any in the house), the Reese’s pieces, both kinds of chips, and the peanuts. I was in somewhat of a rush, so I set my butter out (only one stick for this recipe) on the counter so it could come to room temperature while I was gone. This recipe requires some chill time in the fridge and I had plans mid-afternoon that day.

Making It

This recipe was pretty simple and straight-forward. But, there was a little more prep work than usual when baking cookies. The nuts had to be chopped and the Reese’s Pieces had to be broken up into smaller bits. This took a bit longer than I thought it would. At first, I tried chopping the Reese’s Pieces with the knife, but that didn’t really work. So I brought out a tool I got from Pampered Chef that is supposed to chop things quickly and well.

But I don’t think it’s designed to chop things with a candy-coated shell. The chopping was uneven and I ended up having to take the knife to the pieces anyway.

Once the ingredients were prepared, I started making the dough. I followed the directions as written (or so I thought) and when it came time to add in all the “mix-ins,” I thought to myself “Well, this looks like a small amount of dough.” But I carried on anyway. After all, I haven’t made this recipe before. So, I scooped the dough into balls and made neat little rows on the baking sheets so they could chill for a few hours before baking.

And that’s when I noticed it.

The unopened peanut butter jar was sitting on the counter. And then it hit me! I was baking peanut butter cookies and I forgot to add in the peanut butter. Sadly, the process was done. I had to continue on without the peanut butter in the recipe. I hoped the cookies would come out all right.

Baking It

After the cookie dough balls chilled on the cookie sheet for over two and a half hours, I baked the cookies. I did get all 24 cookies from the batch and placed 12 on each cookie sheet. During the baking process, most of the cookies spread into each other, despite being chilled. Perhaps a longer chill time really is necessary to avoid a super spreader cookie (or a few).

The cookies also took longer to bake than what the recipe said. While I love my silicon mats, I’m beginning to notice a trend every time I use them. The cookies don’t bake as evenly and they take longer and often end up being overdone. I’m going to try to remember to use the parchment paper next time I bake cookies and see if that changes anything.

Upon coming out of the oven, the cookies didn’t look too bad but they definitely did not have the texture resembling the texture of the cookie in the recipe photograph.

Tasting It

Once the cookies were fully cooled, I tried one.

They weren’t bad. In fact, they reminded me very much of chocolate chip cookies. They definitely did not have that peanut butter taste (obviously, because I accidentally left it out). The Reese’s Pieces looked like M&Ms throughout the cookie. For me, I didn’t really taste them or the peanut butter chips throughout the cookies that I ate.

Since I am a big peanut butter fan, I will probably attempt to make these again in the not-so-distant future. I will not forget to add the peanut butter next time!

Happy baking….