Cookie Swap 2011

This year, I heard about a food blogger cookie swap. Honestly, I'm not sure how I wound up there, but it was probably a Facebook link, as are many of the places I end up on the 'net. I do follow Love and Olive Oil, which is one of the organizers. I'm not strictly a food blogger, but I am kind of a foodie, and I do like to find new recipes to try, and have begun to post them more and more often. When I first discovered the swap, my immediate thought was to use my favorite chocolate chip peanut butter cup cookie recipe, unfortunately, I first published it on my blog back in 2008, after I discovered the teeny tiny little peanut butter cups in the bulk section of one of the fresh foods stores. Aren't they cute? 

Since I couldn't use my favorites, I decided that I should just go through my cookie recipes and my late mother's recipe books and find something I could modify to include the peanut butter cups. I decided to go with the chocolate chip cookie bars in one of her notebooks. I simply substituted the peanut butter cups in place of the chocolate chips. 

Peanut Butter Cup Cookie Bars
2 C brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 C melted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla extract
2 C all-purpose flour (NOT packed)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 C extra mini peanut butter cups (I get mine in the bulk foods area. These are the TEENY ones, not the original "mini's" that come individually wrapped from Reese's. Sometimes you can get a 1 or 2 oz pkg of Reese's in about this size now too) or chopped up regular peanut butter cups

Heat oven to 350 & grease 9x13" pan

In a large bowl combine sugar & melted butter & blend well, then add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in Vanilla. Add flour, baking powder & salt & mix well. Fold in peanut butter cups & mix through.
Spread into prepared pan & bake 25 to 35 minutes, or until set. Be careful NOT to overbake.
Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

Makes up to about 36 bars. 

As I don't have a full size oven right now and am using a nice toaster/convection/rotisserie oven, I made up the whole batch, but had to bake it in 2 smaller pans to fit them in the oven. 

It was lots of fun, I've already enjoyed and shared my first dozen cookies that arrived over the weekend from KidEats. That recipe is DEFINITELY going into my book!