Cookie Monster: Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I was a kid, I couldn't have cared less for regular Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies. Aside from Lorna Doones, which I only ate by necessity at my grandparent's house, they were the biggest snooze in the snack rotation. And then two things happened: we got Chewy Chips Ahoy and a microwave. Soft and chewy with pockets of melty chocolate, microwaved Chewy Chips Ahoy were a revelation.

There are a lot of CCA knock-off recipes floating around the internet, and this...isn't one of them. But it is inspired by that texture—that ideal soft yet pliable cookie studded with chocolate chips.

I upped the ante by adding peanut butter because, well, why not? To offset the sweetness of the cookie and compliment the PB, I used dark chocolate chips and added just a bit of extra salt.

This is one of those recipes where I think it really helps to use a cookie scoop. It makes it impossibly easy to use even amounts of dough for each cookie, which means you can bake the entire pan for one perfect length of time. You want to undertake them just a bit so that, as they cool, they become chewy and not hard. It's also important to roll each ball of dough in your hands instead of plonking them on the baking sheet. The peanut butter ensures they'll still get a nice crackle or two, but they'll spread out as opposed to creating a craggy, pillowy cookie.

Milk and Saved By the Bell, anyone?