Some little known facts about me:

Before retiring a couple of years ago – or maybe I’m just on sabbatical, I haven’t decided yet – I was a project manager in the tech industry. My clients made iThingies and super expensive servers and magical photo editing software that lets you zap that jerky ex-boyfriend out of any photo and replace him with any Hollywood or NFL cutie (I vote the latter). I miss it. But only sometimes. Usually when my kid has a set of molars coming in.

I never soften butter for baking recipes. Ever. Those recipes that call for a softened stick of butter? I throw a straight-from-the-fridge stick of butter in the mixer bowl and just turn it on medium-high while I get the rest of the ingredients out. I’m just gonna cream the heck out of it anyway, right?

We named our daughter after the greatest NFL coach of all time. And the most annoying female character on Lost of all time.

I’ve never been as sick, so often, in my previous 33 years than I have been over the last 11 months. Ever. My daughter started preschool 11 months ago. These things are not unrelated. I’m almost certain that her school hires the Outbreak monkey to clean her classroom with dirty needles and used Kleenexes at the end of the school day.

As the daughter of two bakers and a reformed bakery brat myself – I still have that dream a couple of times a month where I’ve overslept and didn’t get to the bakery in time to bake croissants and muffins – I know better than to ever, ever want to open my own bakery. The hours. The overhead. The hours! No thanks. And any job that actually makes you hate the smell of baked goods should be illegal.

And when giving the choice between every fancy dessert in the world and a warm chocolate chip cookie, I’ll take the cookie 9/10 times – there’s no such thing as a bad chocolate chip cookie.

Okay, that’s not true. Remind me to tell you about the one time my mom opened the cabinet door and the canister of garlic salt came tumbling down into the mixer bowl. Those were turrible. But you know what I mean.

As long as you mostly follow directions – and don’t add 1/4 cup of garlic salt – you’re going to get a good chocolate chip cookie. But you can make a good chocolate chip cookie even better and that’s what we did here. We replaced half the butter with peanut butter, used more chocolate than we were supposed to, and added peanuts.

They’re gigantic and the perfect combination of chewy cookie, chocolate, and peanut butter.

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Perfectly thick and chewy peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies studded with peanuts.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter (softened... or not)
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups + 2 Tbsp flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 16 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 3/4 cup unsalted peanuts chopped

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. Cream the butter and peanut butter together until uniform.
3. Add sugars and cream 2-3 minutes, until fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time followed by the vanilla.
5. Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
6. Add to the mixer bowl and mix just until blended.
7. Add the chocolate chunks and nuts to the bowl, mixing until distributed. The dough will be very stiff and even a little crumbly.
8. Divide the dough into 16 balls, approximately 4 oz each (think larger than a golf ball; a 2.5-inch scoop will do the trick perfectly) and place on a lined baking pan.
9. Chill the dough for 20 minutes (you can also freeze dough at this point). Bake 6 cookies per pan (they're huge!) for 18-22 minutes or until browned on the edges and just set in the center.
10. Let cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
11. They'll keep several days in an airtight container or zip top bag.

Notes

Yields: ~16 cookies

Adapted from Levain Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Estimated time: 45 minutes