The REAL Peanut Butter Cookies

If you remember the previous post, I was looking for a peanut butter cookie recipe that also contained more than just eggs, sugar, and peanut butter. It doesn't take long to find a recipe when you know what you're looking for online. The challenges is when you're not sure WHAT you're looking for, like when you have to cook dinner. (On a side note, I don't think I've cooked dinner since a week ago Sunday, and that's really strange for me. That's probably why I was looking for something to bake...).

So, of course, where do I turn but good ol' allrecipes.com. I did first look in several of my cooking books, but then resorted to the web when I couldn't find the right one. And now I've even gotten in the habit of writing down the recipe on a recipe card right away - sometimes you can't find the exact one you've baked when you search the site again. Of course, posting the recipe here is always a good fall back, too.

I also learned a great little technique for spooning out the cookies (since the recipe made 4 dozen!). By using a measured tablespoon, I just scooped and dolloped the perfect amount on to the cookie sheet, then smooched with a fork (all very technical cooking terms...).

This really helped save on time and gave me some pretty uniformly sized cookies. I was expecting them to stay about the same size (as the previous batch did), but with the addition of flour and baking soda, they almost doubled in size and were nice and chewy. This batch was given to the McLean's over the past weekend, but we did keep a few around the house for a little snack at lunch time.

Funny side story: while I was mixing up this batch, I was also doing a few other things in the kitchen and probably wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been. After I added the flour, the dough still seemed pretty crumbly, but the recipe did call for it to sit in the fridge for an hour. I was about to put it in the fridge as is, when I remembered that I had forgotten to add the eggs to the butter and sugar mixture! I thought for sure the recipe was ruined but decided to add them anyway. Luckily, the eggs still blended in nicely, and the dough turned out much less crumbly. Whew!

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Directions

1. Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars. Beat in eggs.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir into batter. Put batter in refrigerator for 1 hour.
3. Roll into 1 inch balls and put on baking sheets. Flatten each ball with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern. Bake in a preheated 375 degrees F oven for about 10 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Do not over-bake.

I think I might know a couple father's who might also enjoy a batch, so I might be baking up another batch shortly...