Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

I had something different planned for Kevin. However, I can't remember what it was because about a week after Thanksgiving he sent me a picture of a recipe for some chocolate-covered peanut butter "cookies" and said I should make them sometime. I figured (and got confirmation) that he wanted these to be his Christmas present. They didn't seem too hard to make: about 4 ingredients for the main "cookie" and melted chocolate for dipping. So I switched gears. It didn't take me long to make them either (well, kinda - more on that in the notes). He loved them - as did everyone else who tried them. 

Also, I found out where he got the recipe: apparently the company he works for has a family business as one of their clients (or something along those lines) and they brought these in one day as a thank you with the recipe attached.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies (source unknown)

Ingredients

• 2 cups peanut butter
  
• ½ butter
• 3 ½ cups powdered sugar
• 3 cups Rice Kirspies
• 2 ½ cups chocolate chips

Directions

1. Melt peanut butter and butter in microwave for 30 seconds. Stir in powdered sugar.
2. Place Rice Krispies in plastic bag and partially crush with a rolling pin. Add to peanut butter mixture. Mix with your hands.
3. Roll into balls and freeze (it doesn't say how long but I'm guessing until firm).
4. Melt chocolate chips (see notes). Dip balls in chocolate and refrigerate.

• It ended up taking me longer than expected to get to the dipping part. Apparently there's an ingredient in store brand chocolate chips that prevents them from melting (I compared the two - there are a couple differences between the store brands and national brands that could be the culprit). So the small batches of Safeway Select chocolate chips that I used barely melted. I asked Mom about it (as always) and that's when I found out about the different ingredients factor. Because it was the day before Christmas Eve and I had a few more tasks to do, we decided that she'd pick me up early and I would use some of my dad's "snacking" chips (a.k.a. their Costco-sized bag of chocolate chips) and do a double boiler. Basically you boil a pot of water on the stove then reduce the temp. On top of the pot you put a heat-safe bowl full of the chocolate chips and stir. This worked out SO MUCH BETTER than if I had melted the chips in the microwave because of the consistent heat (I've had problems with melted chocolate hardening while dipping treats in the past). I think I might do dipping chocolate this way from now on.