Best Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are the best peanut butter chocolate chip cookies! They have an amazing texture, soft and crispy somehow. Using two different kinds of chocolate chips is the secret to the great flavor. I've lived at several altitudes now, and these cookies never fail me. So in Denver or Dubuque, try them for yourself!

1 cup butter at room temperature

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup peanut butter (creamy or smooth as you like)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

Hand or stand mixer

Spatula

Teaspoons and tablespoons

Measuring cups

Bowl

Cookie sheets

Make sure your butter is about room temperature. Measure 3/4 cup white and 3/4 cup packed brown sugar and add to bowl. Mix with hand or stand mixer on low until it starts to come together. Scrape the bowl, then increase the speed and mix until well combined and fluffy.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees F.

Add the 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 cup peanut butter to the bowl. Mix on low for a couple of minutes, scrape the bowl and mix on medium until combined.

Measure the 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon of salt into a spare measuring cup (I used the same on as the sugar). Spoon flour into the 1 cup measuring cup, pausing about halfway to put in half the baking soda and salt mix.* Stir it a little then finish adding flour to fill the cup. Add it to the bowl. Repeat with the second cup of flour.

Add one cup of milk chocolate chips and one cup of semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips.

*I mix the leavening agent into the flour in the measuring cups because I want to incorporate them, but I don't want to get another bowl dirty.

It's hard to over mix the wet ingredients and the sugars. Flour is different. When you add flour and chips, you don't want to mix them too much or the texture of the cookies will be off. Use low speed on the mixer. Mix until the flour is mostly incorporated. Scrape the dough off the beaters and finish mixing with spatula.

Drop the cookies onto the cookie sheet by the tablespoonful. Flatten them a little bit with the back of the spoon. Bake at 300 degrees F for 22 minutes. The great texture of this cookie is due to the gentle mixing of the flour and the low and slow bake. Put one sheet of cookies in the oven at a time. Let them cool on the sheet for at least a minute before cooling on the counter or on wire rack.

It makes about 3 dozen cookies so I freeze half right after they cool. They are awesome directly from the freezer or warmed in the toaster oven.