Valentine's Day Peanut Butter Cookies

 I LOVE peanut butter.  It's actually a problem.  Well, not really.  But I'm sure I'd be better off if I liked it less.  And chocolate too.  Just sweets in general honestly.  But, that's not gonna happen long term.  Especially around Valentine's Day.  Which also happens to be around the same time as my birthday and Girl Scout cookies (mmm...Samoas).  It's like Doomsday really- for diets.  Since there's no hope anyway here's an easy cookie recipe.  It's just peanut butter cookies with Dove chocolate hearts.  I use JIF peanut butter.  To me no other brand compares to JIF.  I usually use the peanut butter cookie recipe on the back of the JIF container, but the day I made these I didn't have any 

shortening, so this is the recipe I used.  YUM!

 Ingredients 

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Dove chocolate hearts

 Beat the butter until creamy, about 2 minutes (I used my Kitchen Ninja mixer for these.) 

Add the sugars, and beat for 2 more minutes. Mix in the peanut butter and egg. 

Mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.  

Mix the dry ingredients into the sugar butter mixture.

 Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 3 hours.  (I'm not this patient so I waited maybe an hour.)

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls. Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.  (I always use my Pampered Chef cookie bar pan to make cookies.  It's amazing!)

Bake until light brown, 9 to 10 minutes. While the cookies are baking, unwrap all of the Dove chocolate hearts that you are going to use so they are ready to go.

After you pull the cookies out of the oven, press one Dove chocolate heart right in the middle.

Cool on baking sheets for a minute; transfer to rack to cool completely. 

It takes a kinda long time for the chocolate hearts to cool, so don't stack these cookies for awhile. 

Yum!