How to Make Awesome Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here's a guide on how to make some yummily chewy cookies. If your cookies keep coming out like hardened disks that work better as frisbees than dessert I have a couple of tips that can help you out regardless of what type of cookie it is.

This recipe is for peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and they are... delicious.

Dry ingredients:

- 1 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt

Stir in small bowl

Wet ingredients:

- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed*
- 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
- 1 stick (1/4 pound or 8 tbsp) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup honey

Blend in medium bowl

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in two additions.

*Yes, brown sugar is technically dry, but since it's mixed with all of the rest of the wet ingredients I just put it there

I've used chocolate chunks hacked from a huge chocolate bar, broken up smaller chocolate bars, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. All worked out great.

In these photos I'm using 6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips. Stir them into the mix.

Cover the bowl and put in the fridge for 30-40 minutes so it's easier to handle.

Ovens lie. It's a fact of life that some ovens will tell you that they're at the temperature you want and be off by a full 80 degrees. In my previous apartment, the oven was nice and new and had lovely digital controls. It was also a horrible liar hell-bent on ruining my baking attempts.

If I wanted the oven to be at 450, it would let me know it was ready when it was only 370. Five minutes later it would stabilize at 430. That's a full five minutes of your dough being cooked at the wrong temperature, completely throwing you off.

So long story short, buy a thermometer and stick it in the oven. It doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to work so you'll know what the true temperature is.

For this recipe, you'll want it at 350 Fahrenheit or 175 Celsius.

I roll my dough into balls about 1.25" (3cm) wide. You can go a little bigger if you want. I've found that a little bit of variation does not have a noticeable effect on the cooking time. Put them onto a buttered cookie tray.

The trays I use are insulated ones. Getting fancy cookie trays may seem a bit extreme, but there was a period last year where I got a bit obsessed and these have been totally worth it.

So now that you're sure your oven is at 350F/175C and it's stable at that temperature, put the dough in for 12 minutes.

After 12 minutes the cookies will not look ready, but take them out anyway and put the whole pan out on the counter to cool. Do not touch them!

Oh, you'll want to touch them. You'll want to put one in your mouth right away, your tender tongue be damned, but don't do it. Really.

OK, so you did touch one and it seems fragile and undercooked. That's why you need to let them cool for 5 minutes before moving them to a rack or a plate.

Yay! You waited for the cookies to cool and now they're good to go! You can eat them now or save some for later. These are good on their own or combined with other sugary treats. Like ice cream. Ice cream loves these cookies and vice versa. Let the love flow.

To get the fresh baked warmth and goodness feeling back, quickly zap in a microwave or briefly toss into a toaster.

Eat.