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If you don’t have a lot of time but still want to do something handmade for gifts, this is one of the easiest recipes around. It makes about two pounds of candy and can easily be halved or doubled. You can use crushed red and green peppermint candies for an extra Christmas kick, or sprinkle crushed Oreo cookies on top if you or a recipient don’t like peppermint.

If you’re not crazy about white chocolate you can substitute with vanilla baking chips.

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Crushed peppermint candy canes or starlight peppermints, about 1 cup
2 pounds white chocolate
Peppermint flavoring, optional

Place candy canes in a plastic bag and hammer into 1/4-inch chunks or smaller. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Combine candy cane chunks with chocolate (add peppermint flavoring at this point if desired.)

Pour mixture onto a cookie sheet layered with parchment or waxed paper and place in the refrigerator for 45 minutes or until firm. Remove from cookie sheet and break into pieces (like peanut brittle.)

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I think peanut butter baking morsels are one the best baking creations ever. Instead of trying to add regular peanut butter to kick up a recipe, you can just add some chips for a perfectly balanced taste. And really, mixing them up with some regular chocolate chips make for a quick satisfying snack, too! (I’m not the only one who’s done that, right?)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups butter, melted
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups peanut butter chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, mix together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; gradually stir into the butter mixture. Mix in peanut butter chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Cool for 1 minute before placing on wire racks to cool completely.

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I actually haven’t made these in a little while (the picture above is about two years old!), but that’s probably because the mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups just don’t last that long around here!

This is how easy they are to make:

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

You’ll need:

~ Your favorite peanut butter cookie recipe or refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough
~ Unwrapped Reese’s mini peanut butter cups
~ Mini muffin tin

Make your cookie dough and roll into about one inch balls. Either grease a mini muffin tin or line with mini liners (I chose to use liners since these went into tins, otherwise I leave them bare) and plop each ball of dough in. Gently push in one mini peanut butter cup so the dough rises up around the sides.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Make sure you leave the cookies in the tin for about five minutes after you pull them out of the oven so they can set up a bit before you remove them, otherwise they’ll crumble on you!

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