chocolate heart peanut butter cookies

Here is the direct link for: Chocolate Heart Peanut Butter Cookies.

This recipe comes from the Betty Crocker's home page. The cookie is described as "chocolate and peanut butter marry in a favorite cookie combo." I love this combination in a cookie!

The recipe uses one pouch of Betty Crocker Peanut Butter Cookie Mix. I have never used this cookie mix before, so I was curious to try it. Plus I wanted a quick and easy cookie as a Valentine's gift to send off to my son away at college. In the end, it was quick and easy to mix up but the cookies lacked that 'real' peanuty-taste. I prefer traditional home-made peanut butter cookies.

The recipe calls for chocolate hearts so I used Hersey's Chocolate Hearts Assortment, a combination of chocolate hearts in milk chocolate, peanut butter filled and dark chocolate. I personally don't like the size of these hearts, they seem a bit too big. I usually like my cookies on the smallish-size. The cookies in the photo above measure about 3-inches after baking. The cookies on the Betty Crocker site look more delicate than mine. They must of used a smaller chocolate heart. But of course, they don't tell you where they got their hearts.

NOTE: I just noticed in the reviews on Betty Crocker's site that one reviewer recommended using Dove milk chocolate hearts for their size and creaminess. Boy, it is amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough in these blogs!

I found another blog, The Baker Chick, that creates a similar cookie but she makes her cookies from scratch, Peanut Butter Sweetheart Cookies. I will try this recipe next time. She also made a great suggestion which I found very helpful. She said she likes "to put the hot cookies into the freezer for a few minutes so the cookie doesn't melt the chocolate too much. Otherwise it can take quite a long time for the chocolate to solidify again and the cookies won't stack easily." This idea worked slick!

This Valentine cookie needs a little work, a bit of tweeking to find the right size chocolate heart and a better tasting peanut butter cookie recipe, but I am getting close, I can taste it.

I give this cookie idea the red pin award cause its different from the traditional Valentine's cookies! I will definitely try this idea again and keep you posted of my results.





Happy pinning!