Chocolate Peanut Butter Shells

This is undoubtedly my most requested cookie recipe and it’s my personal favorite treat.
Originally, my sister gave me a recipe similar to this one. After becoming addicted to these cookies,
I lost the original recipe and I needed it ASAP for an event I was baking for, so I had to do some
improvising and call on my rusty memory and some random notes I had once scribbled down about them.
The result? An even better version of the original cookie. These are a little time consuming but so, so worth it.


DougH:
1½ cups fl our
½ cup baking cocoa
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup margarine, softened
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
¼ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Filling:
¾ to 1 cup sifted powdered sugar
½ cup peanut butter
cup chocolate chips
¼ teaspoon coarse salt


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
For dough: In a small bowl, sift together fl our, cocoa and baking soda. In a large bowl, beat together margarine, sugar and brown sugar. Add milk and vanilla to the sugar mixture.
Beat well. Gently mix in the fl our mixture about at a time until incorporated. The dough should have a texture similar to Play-Doh.
For Filling: Combine peanut butter and ½ cup powdered sugar in a mixing bowl; keep adding remaining powdered sugar and beat until sugar is absorbed and peanut butter feels stiff and no longer appears shiny. Stir in chocolate chips.
It should be a pretty solid mixture because you want to form it into little balls.
Take a piece of dough just a bit smaller than the size of a golf ball and fl atten it into a disc on a piece of parchment paper. Place a heaping teaspoon of the peanut butter mixture on the center of the dough. Carefully fold the chocolate dough over the peanut butter ball and seal the edges. If the dough cracks, you can easily pinch it back together. Roll the dough into a ball.
Place balls on the baking sheet, 1 inch apar t, sealed side down. Bake for about 8 minutes, until cookies begin to crack slightly on the surface. Let cool for 1 minute on the baking sheet, then carefully transfer to a cooling rack. Store cooled cookies in an air tight container at room temperature.
Yield: 1½ DOZEN COOKIES
Prep time: 45 MINUTES