Crunchy-Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies for Veteran's Day

Instead of looking for a job last night, I decided to bake about fifty cookies for T's platoon in honor of Veteran's Day (and...because I forgot the Marine Corps birthday yesterday until it was too late).

I looked up a few recipes and then decided to kind of make it up as I went along, adding crunchy peanut butter and a tiny bit of almond extract so that the cookie batter ended up tasting exactly like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. If I hadn't eaten so many spoonfuls of it, I probably could've ended up producing about ten more cookies.

This recipe is for a large batch, but can be halved easily if you aren't trying to feed forty Marines.

Crunchy-Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

• 1 lb. (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 4 cups flour
• 4 eggs
• 4 cups semisweet chocolate chunks
• 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream the butter and sugars together until well-blended, then add the vanilla and almond extracts and peanut butter, and then the eggs one at a time.  

2. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt, and then stir the dry ingredients into the wet. Add the chocolate chunks last, taking care to stir them in thoroughly so that each cookie has a good ratio of chocolate to cookie.

3. Using a soup spoon or a tablespoon, scoop the cookie batter onto nonstick baking sheets in rows, about 2 inches apart.

4. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden on top and starting to crisp up around the edges. Remove from the oven and let cool for 3-4 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

These cookies are really simple, and the almond extract adds a great hint of flavor in the background that really boosts the taste of the peanut butter and chocolate. I have no idea if the Marines liked them, because T left them (and my platter) at the barracks. But I'm assuming, based on having tasted them myself, that they're just ridiculously good.

Happy Veteran's Day, and thank you to all our veterans out there.