Peanutty Gems

 This is a Niagara Falls Boys and Girls Club favorite. It is made for the Annual Auction by one of the Boys and Girls Club volunteers.

Peanutty Gems caught my eye because Marco and I both love Reese's and this cookie is a peanut butter cookie with half of the cookie dipped in melted chocolate.

There are a couple different peanut butter cookies in "A Stir in The Mist".

This one is nice because you can do it a couple different ways.

You can make large cookies (get up to 4 dozen), or you can make small cookies, like I have and I got close to 7 dozen. When you put the chocolate on you can cover the whole top, just like i did with the Howe's cookies, or to make them actual "Peanutty Gems" you will dip half of the cookie into the chocolate.

As you mix the first part of all your ingredients, you can get all your dry ingredients mixed up and ready to add together. The one thing I noticed while making cookies. There is always a lot of flour and like a teaspoon of baking soda. It is such a small amount of baking soda, how could it possibly effect anything? Is it that powerful? Just something that blows my mind as I stir all my dry ingredients together.

Remember to add the flour mixture nice and slowly, It will fly up and get you if you add to much at one time. (the flour all over my counter was my hint to add slowly).

The cookie dough will stiffen up towards the end of the flour mixture being added. Make sure you use all the flour.

The dough should be easy to work with, sticky but yet you are able to form little balls by rolling them in between your palms.

I chose to make little balls this way I would be able to make a large batch. It is entirely up to you.

Once you have made your balls and placed them on your cookie sheets, you will then take the bottom of a glass and lightly push down to flatten out just a little. You still want the cookie to be thick just not round.

You will notice that the cookie dough may crack a little. That is okay, it will happen.

These cookies do not expand to much more in size, so feel free to put as many as you can on the cookie sheet. Just as long as there is enough space in between to bake.

The recipe says to bake for 5 minutes on the bottom rack and then 5 min on the top rack. I did exactly what it said, and they came out nice and chewy.

Once the cookies are cooled down, you can go ahead and melt your chocolate. I only used a pound of the chocolate that the recipe calls for. Again my cookies may be smaller than most. So you may need the full 2 pounds of chocolate wafers.

If you melt the chocolate in the microwave as I did. Make sure you keep a close eye on it. The bottom may melt first and the top may look like the wafers are still whole. Still take the bowl out and stir it around. The chocolate is going to be soft and it will cream together once you mix it.

You do not want to burn the chocolate, so just heat it up a little bit at a time. Keep stirring.

I dipped half of the cookie into the chocolate. I only dropped one cookie totally into the chocolate, so I did well. I just left that one for Marco to taste!

Here is the final cookie!

These cookies are very easy to make. I got close to 7 dozen, so they are perfect if you are having company or would like to bring them somewhere to enjoy.

I hope you try this recipe once you purchase your own "A Stir in The Mist" cookbook.