Giant Peanut Butter Blossoms

The trend lately is mini desserts. Mini cupcakes. Dessert shooters at restaurants. Call me old fashioned, but I think a normal candy bar is way more fun than a fun-size candy bar. That's why I was completely intrigued when I saw giant peanut butter blossoms made giant with the use of a normal peanut butter cup rather than a dainty piece of chocolate or miniature peanut butter cup. I don't recall where I originally saw the idea, but I replicated the recipe from Cookies and Cups when I made my version.

I made 14 giant cookies because my bag of peanut butter cups contained 14 pieces of candy. I smushed the rest of the dough into a silicone bread pan (for easy removal) and tossed in leftover Hershey kisses from Easter. Success.

 

Giant Peanut Butter Blossoms
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla
Additional 1/2 cups sugar
14 (or more) peanut butter cups

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream butter and sugars together on medium speed. Add peanut butter, and mix. Add eggs and vanilla, and mix until combined.

Slowly add dry ingredients. Stir until just combined. Chill dough for at least 2 hours (or close to one hour in the freezer if you're impatient like me).

When dough is chilled, shape into balls using about 1/4 cup of dough. Roll each ball in reserved granulated sugar.Place each rolled cookie on baking sheet. Smush down slightly to start the flattening process.

Bake 9-10 minutes until bottoms gets slightly golden and tops just start to crack. As soon as they come out of the oven, quickly press peanut butter cups into the cookies. Cool on the cookie sheets until the cookie set, at least 15 minutes. Carefully transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Makes at least 14 cookies ... depends on what you do with the remainder of your dough.