White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies with White Chocolate Chips and Crushed Peanut Butter Cups

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Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Hopefully these cookies will help get you through the rest of the week. This has been an excellent week for me so far. It's spring break for my husband (he's in business school) and having him around more often is amazing. We have been doing yoga, watching marathons of Hawaii Five-0 and just generally relaxing. But even more exciting, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first niece or nephew!

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But enough about me. I'm sure you are really here for the cookies...like I could blame you.

Oh, man. I wish I could properly convey how delicious these white chocolate peanut butter cookies are. If you couldn't already tell, I am really excited about this recipe. My original recipe idea was for dark chocolate peanut butter cookies, but when I made them, I just found them to be uninspired. I understand that every recipe I come up with isn't going to be a game changer. Sometimes there's nothing better than a good sugar cookie recipe or an original chocolate chip cookie recipe. This is not one of those times. This is a chocolate chip cookie that has melted white chocolate and peanut butter in the batter with white chocolate chips AND crushed peanut butter cups. Game changer. White chocolate and peanut butter is the new milk chocolate peanut butter. Just saying.

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White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies with White Chocolate Chips and Crushed Peanut Butter Cups
Makes approximately 24 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into cubes

4 ounces white chocolate, chopped

2/3 cup creamy peanut butter

½ cup light brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cornstarch

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1 cup white chocolate chips

3/4 cup peanut butter cups, chopped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium microwave safe bowl, add the butter and white chocolate.

Heat in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir and place back in the microwave, heating in 10 second increments until melted.

Set the bowl aside to cool off while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl attached to a stand mixer, add the sugars, peanut butter and vanilla.

Beat on medium speed until combined. Add the egg and beat for another 30 seconds.

Now add the butter and chocolate mixture and beat on medium speed until combined.

With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture to the mixing bowl.

Lastly, add the white chocolate chips and the chopped peanut butter cups and stir until incorporated.

Using a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop, drop the cookie dough onto a baking sheet and bake for approximately 10 minutes or until the cookies are almost set. It is okay if the centers of the cookies are still a little shiny, they will continue to cook out of the oven and these cookies are best soft.

Leave on the baking sheets for 2 - 3 minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.