Look for the Reeses Peanut Butter Hearts in the Valentine candy aisle in your market, drugstore, Target, etc. If you’re unable to locate them, you can always use just regular chocolate hearts.
Ingredients needed:
all purpose flour
baking soda
salt
salted butter
creamy peanut butter
light brown sugar
white sugar
egg
milk
vanilla extract
chocolate peanut butter hearts
How to make Chocolate Peanut Butter Hearts:
The complete, printable recipe is at the end of this post.
Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the butter, peanut butter and sugars until smooth. Add in the egg, milk and vanilla and mix again. Stir in the dry ingredients. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for about an hour until it is slightly firm.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat mats. Make some room in your refrigerator or freezer for one cookie sheet.
Shape the dough into 1½-inch balls and roll in sugar. Place the sugared cookie dough balls on one baking sheet, about 1½-inches apart.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies are set and golden. Remove from the oven and immediately press one peanut butter heart into the center of each cookie. Place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator or freezer until the chocolate is set (the Reeses hearts will get melty when you press them into the cookies, but they will harden-up again once they have cooled down). Repeat with the remaining cookie dough and PB hearts.
You need to make sure that you (quickly but gently) press the hearts into the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven so the hearts will set into the cookies. Then it’s best if you throw them in the freezer for a bit until they set up. Otherwise they’ll just be melty and you’ll need to wait for them to harden again at room temperature. These are just like those peanut butter kiss cookies that everyone makes, except with the PB Hearts instead.
Layers of chocolate- peanut butter goodness. That’s exactly the way to describe the picture!
Hot Tip:
If you’re making these for another holiday, you can look for chocolate peanut butter trees for Christmas, eggs for Easter, etc. And if you just want to make them on a regular day that’s not a holiday, just use Reeses Peanut Butter Cups instead. Enjoy!