By January 2024 — wait, no. The confusion of dates is the confusion of a woman whose life is measured in weekly visits and cooking sessions and blog posts and chapters, not in calendar months. It is January. It is cold. The kitchen is warm. The writing awaits. Marvin is in his recliner. The soup is on the stove. The year is new. I begin again, as I always do, with the crossword in pen and the coffee strong and the challah on the counter and the journal open on the table. The beginning is the practice. The practice is the life.
I made a chicken soup — the full Sylvia version, three hours, dill and parsnip and the marrow bones. The soup is the January food, the cold-weather food, the food that says: I know it's dark. I know it's cold. I know the house is quiet and the bed is empty and the man you love is ten miles away in a room. But the soup is hot and the broth is golden and the kitchen is warm and you are here, Ruth. You are still here. And the being-here is the victory, and the victory is the soup.
After three hours of Sylvia’s soup — the dill, the parsnip, the marrow bones, the whole golden labor of it — I needed something small and sweet to close the evening, a little reward for the being-here that the soup had already declared. Marvin has always loved peanut butter in any form, and something about the cheerful orange and yellow of Reese’s Pieces felt exactly right for a January kitchen that needed one more bright thing. These cookies are not January food, exactly — they are celebration food, and on this particular beginning-of-a-year, I decided that a small celebration was exactly what the evening called for.
Reese’s Pieces Soft Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 36 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 1 1/2 cups Reese’s Pieces candies, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
- Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then mix in the vanilla extract until fully combined.
- Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture and stir until just combined — do not overmix.
- Fold in the candy. Reserve about 1/4 cup of the Reese’s Pieces for topping, then gently fold the remaining 1 1/4 cups into the dough.
- Portion and top. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Press a few of the reserved Reese’s Pieces onto the top of each dough ball.
- Bake. Bake for 10—12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers still look slightly underdone. Do not overbake — they firm up as they cool.
- Cool. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 148 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 17g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 105mg