Chocolate Cake Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

If there's one thing my bf loves, it's peanut butter with chocolate. Okay, so maybe that's two things. Even so, I knew that I'd have to whip up something featuring this delicious combination for his birthday festivities this year.

Since I love trying recipes from Picky Palate, especially for baking, I decided on one of the blog's numerous peanut butter and chocolate baked goods. I stumbled across a recipe for Chocolate Cake Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies and was impressed with how easy they looked to make, as well as the minimal number of ingredients involved.

The base of the cookie batter is actually a box of devil's food cake mix with a few extra yummy ingredients added in.

The only 5 ingredients you need!

You start out by combining your cake mix with some melted butter and one egg. It doesn't matter which ingredients you add first but I went with the liquids.

Add in your one egg

Now the melted butter...

Next, I added 2 cups of chocolate chips. I used the mini chocolate chips since those were used in the original recipe, but you can use whatever kind you want! You could even try adding in some peanut butter chips!

Add in your chocolate chips

I started to mix everything together with a wooden spoon and then realized it's much easier to mix with your hands because the dough gets pretty dry. Feel free to add an additional tablespoon or two of melted butter if you feel your cookie dough is too dry.

Just keep mixing...

Next, it was time to unwrap 25 of those delicious mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. After unwrapping, place all of the cups into a plastic bag and start smashing them up into little pieces. I used the handle of a rubber spatula to break these babies up.

Yum!

Place them in a plastic bag and smash away!

Crumbled Peanut Butter Cups

Add your crumbled Reese's to your bowl and continue mixing!

Fold the smashed peanut butter cups into your cookie dough

The last of the mixing!

Next, you can use either a cookie scoop or a rounded tablespoon to drop the dough balls about 1 inch apart onto a cookie sheet. I didn't have a cookie scoop and the tablespoon worked perfectly.

Place cookie dough 1 inch apart on cookie sheet

After you have all of your cookies lined up, gently press down on each, about 1/2 an inch down. This will slightly flatten each cookie, allowing for a more even bake.

Press each cookie down 1/2 of an inch

Pop these chocolatey treats into the oven at 350 degrees for about 13-15 minutes. I wouldn't go over 15 minutes because the cookies will burn before you know it! The result is a crunchy chocolate cookie with luscious chunks of peanut butter cup goodness. Who knew you could make cookies out of a cake mix? Enjoy!

Chocolate Cake Reese's Peanut Butter Chunk Cookies

Recipe from Picky Palate

Ingredients:
1 box devils food cake mix
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, melted (plus 1-2 more tablespoons if dough is too dry)
1 large egg
2 cups mini chocolate chips (or whatever kind you like)
25 mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Place all ingredients into a large bowl mixing until combined. It's definitely easiest to mix with your hands. If the dough is too dry, feel free to add 1-2 additional tablespoons of melted butter.
3.With a cookie scoop or tablespoon, scoop dough onto baking sheet placed 1 inch apart.
4. Bake for 13-15 minutes until cooked through. Let cool for 10 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes 3 dozen cookies