Peanut Butter Filled Chocolate Cookies

It's Christmas Cookie baking time in our house which means I will be making 4 or 5 different kinds of treats in the next week. One of our favorite dessert flavor combinations is chocolate and peanut butter, but I wanted to try something different than the usual peanut butter cookie with a Hershey kiss on top. I will admit it's a little involved and took longer than I expected but they are really tasty, so to me it was worth it.

Adapted slightly from http://www.grouprecipe.com/

Ingredients For the Cookie:

1 1/2 cup Flour
1/2 cup Hershey's Coco Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) I Can't Believe it's Not Butter for Cooking & Baking, softened
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Packed Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Peanut Butter
1 Egg
1 tbsp Milk
1 tsp Vanilla
2 Tbsp Granulated Sugar - For outside of cookie

Ingredients for the Filling:
3/4 cup Confectioner's Sugar - Sifted
1/2 cup Peanut Butter

Side note to be aware of is: DON'T use chunky peanut butter. That is what we have in our pantry but when I make this next time I will stick to the smooth stuff, especially for the filling.

Combine all of your dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together (Flour, Coco Powder & Baking Soda). Set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Combine the two types of sugar, softened butter and peanut butter in a Kitchen Aid mixer or large bowl using a hand mixer. Once it is well mixed, add the egg, milk and vanilla.

Mix well and then begin adding the dry ingredients little by little, 1 cup or so at a time. Allow the dough to form slowly, absorbing all of the flour.

Once it is done mixing. Take all of the dough and make small 1 inch balls. Try to keep them all the same size, for some reason this is hard for me. Place them on a piece of parchment paper on one of your cookie sheets. When all the balls have been made, put the sheet in the fridge while you make the filling.

If you are using a Kitchen Aid mixer unfortunately you have some dish washing to do before you continue.

In a large bowl using a hand mixer or using the Kitchen Aid mixer again, combine the peanut butter and sifted powdered sugar. Beat until smooth. This is where I ran into some trouble because my filling was very crumbly. I'm not sure why but after 4 or 5 minutes of mixing nothing happened so I added a Tbsp of milk to help it along which seemed to work.

Take the filling out of the bowl and form into 1/2 inch balls, placing them on parchment paper on another cookie sheet. I will warn you after handling the peanut butter your hands will be greasy. You can now take  the chocolate balls out of the fridge. Flatten each chocolate ball a little bit and place a smaller peanut butter ball on top. Gently reform the chocolate ball to surround the peanut butter ball by rolling it between your palms.

Place the granulated sugar in a shallow dish. Wet the bottom of a drinking glass slightly and dip it in the sugar. Flatten each cookie on the parchment paper, re-dip the glass into the sugar when needed. Make sure they are about 2 inches a part on the cookie sheet. Bake them for 8 minutes or until the top begins to crack. Let them cool 1 minute on the sheet before transferring them to a rack to cool complete.

Enjoy!! - Nicole