The One With the Peanut Butter Stuffed Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

The girls and I have been having a lot of fun baking together lately. They're finally at the age where they can be somewhat helpful, or at least not totally destructive in the kitchen. And they really love to do the stirring and the taste testing. You know, the important stuff.

It was possibly the cutest moment in my life when I was cleaning up or something and I heard Olivia saying, "Look! That's Olivia. That's me." And she was pointing at her reflection in the Kitchen Aid bowl. My heart almost melted. Seriously.

It just doesn't get much sweeter than this.

Anyway. On to the cookies.

Is it just me, or are peanut butter cookies sometimes too peanut buttery? Just a bit overwhelming in their peanut butteriness? Well I do. So when I saw that someone stuffed their chocolate chip cookies with Nutella, I thought that using peanut butter instead would be a pretty stellar idea. And it is. It makes the cookies peanut buttery, but not overly so. They're just about perfect if you ask me.

We've been making my grandmother's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe a lot lately. It's highly addictive, and just ever so slightly more "special" than regular chocolate chip cookies. Adding a little peanut butter to the middle is just the right touch.

Peanut Butter Stuffed Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 2 dozen cookies

Preheat oven to 375*

• 1 1/2 cup sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1 package (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips (or half a package of milk, half of semisweet chocolate chips)
• 1 cup chopped almonds
• Peanut butter

Sift flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Add vanilla and almond extract. Mix in sifted dry ingredients. Stir in oats, chocolate chips and nuts. You may find the dough easier to work with if you refrigerate it for half an hour to an hour before moving on to the next step.
To stuff the cookies, take a tablespoon of cookie dough and roll it into a ball. Use your thumb to make an imprint in the cookie dough, creating a little crater. Scoop about a teaspoon of peanut butter into the crater and then cover the peanut butter with another little bit of cookie dough. (See pictures of this technique used for Salted Caramel and Chocolate Chip Cookies here.)
Place dough balls on a greased baking sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Enjoy! I'm quite certain you will!