My favorite way to unwind is baking. Something about creaming butter with sugar, savoring the rich warm scent of chocolate, and inhaling the tantalizing aroma that seeps into every nook and cranny of the house relaxes me. And believe me, after finishing a tough week of finals, I needed to unwind.

My friend’s family had driven down to Atlanta for the weekend and I really wanted to give them something to nibble on during the long drive back to Missouri. I remembered the giant bag of Reese’s peanut butter cups my roommate and I had nabbed from after-Easter sales still lurking in the kitchen drawer. *Ding!* I could bake cookies with those! I would both destress myself and bake up a lovely bunch of munchies for my friend: two birds with one cookie!

For 1/3 of the dough, I mixed in dark chocolate chips instead of Reese’s peanut butter cups for a little variety. Look at how close together they are!

I switched up my go-to Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe a little bit to create these Reese’s peanut butter cookies. I usually cut some of the sugar when I bake because frankly, I find most recipes to be way too sweet for my palate (and those of my friends & family – I guess it’s an Asian thing ), and this one was no exception. I also decided to double the batch to make sure I had more than enough to go around. There’s no such thing as too many cookies anyways.

Voila! None of them are touching!

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cookies (yields about 3 1/2 dozen)

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter (melted, but not completely “clear” melted, just soupy and creamy )
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
3/4 cup white sugar
2 tbsp vanilla extract
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
3 1/2 cups roughly chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups (feel free to add more )

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C)
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the melted butter, peanut butter, and olive oil until creamy. Add the brown sugar and white sugar and cream until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, eggs, egg yolks until just creamy.
4. Mix in the dry ingredients until just blended. Fold in the chopped Reese’s peanut butter cups with a wooden spoon or a spatula.
5. Drop cookie dough (about two tbsp) onto the cookie sheets. These cookies don’t spread very much (I think it’s because of the peanut butter) so it’s all right to crowd them a little more than usual. Lightly pat down the cookies to the desired thickness.
6. Bake for 10-17 minutes (depending on how flat your cookies are), or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes (or consume!) before transferring to wire racks to cool (be consumed) completely.

Notes
- For lighter, meringue-like cookies, beat the mixture before adding the dry ingredients very well until it’s light and fluffy.
- The thinner the cookie, the shorter the baking time. I didn’t flatten my first sheet of cookies because I thought they would spread out like the chocolate chip cookies. They took about 15 minutes to bake. I wanted slightly thinner cookies and lightly flattened the rest of the cookies, which took 10 minutes to bake.