Peanut Butter Cookies with Blackberry Jam

Even though I'm not much of a baker, there's something about a rainy afternoon that makes me want to bake. So today was a great time to try these Peanut Butter Cookies from Giada de Laurentiis'  Weeknights with Giada Cookbook, and they did not disappoint.  The dough has a nice peanut butter flavor with just a hint of cocoa, then you have the surprise of a blackberry jam center.  Yum!!  If I'm going to splurge and make cookies, I want them to be something this tasty.

These cookies are very easy to make and only require a handful of ingredients.  If you don't have blackberry jam on hand I think strawberry would be another delicious option.  (I might have to try those next weekend!)  This baking habit might just catch on :-)

1 cup  Flour
1/3 cup  Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp  Baking Soda
18/ tsp  Fine Sea Salt
8 TB  (1 stick)  Unsalted Butter, room temperature
3/4 cup  Creamy Peanut Butter
1 cup  Sugar
1/2 cup  Light Brown Sugar, packed
1  Egg
1 tsp  Vanilla Extract
1/4 c  Blackberry Jam

Preheat oven to 375  and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, peanut butter, 3/4 cup of sugar, and brown sugar, beating until smooth.  Add egg and vanilla and mix, then add the dry ingredients and mix again until combined.

In a small bowl or plate pour the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar.  Use a measuring scoop to form 1/4 cup of dough into a ball, then roll in the sugar and place on the parchment-lined sheets.  Repeat with the remaining dough and you should end up with about 18 - 20 cookies.  (The original recipe used 1/4 cup of dough per cookie but the cookies come out pretty big, so 1/3 works better if you would like a  smaller cookie.)

Use a spoon to make an indent in the center of each cookie and place 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of blackberry jam in the center of each cookie.  (A full teaspoon seemed a bit too much on the smaller cookies so a 1/2 teaspoon worked better for us, if you like more jam go for the full teaspoon.)

Bake for 11 - 14 minutes until the cookies are crackled and slightly hardened.  Cool on the sheets for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.  Makes about 18 - 20 cookies.