Peanut Butter Cookies

 

It quite changes your disposition and your view of the world if you cannot have peanut butter every day.

- William F. Buckley Jr.

(Who knew we had so much in common?)

Did you know? March is National Peanut Month. According to the fantastically titled, Peanuts: The Illustrious History of the Goober Pea, the holiday dates all the way back to 1941, when the National Peanut Council established National Peanut Week to promote the sales of peanuts and peanut products in the U.S.  (And I've officially used up my peanut word count for the entire post). It was expanded to a month-long celebration in 1947, and apparently the average child will eat 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before he/she graduates high school, so I suppose the campaign has been pretty successful.

I just came across this piece of food history, and I couldn't be happier. You may not know this about me yet, but I'm what I like to call a peanut butter enthusiast. I'm one of those people who eats it straight out of the jar by the spoonful. And maybe it was an innate sense of National Peanut Month that compelled me to bake some peanut butter cookies recently as a thank-you for some new friends - friends who, at some point in my short time of knowing them, mentioned they happen to like peanut butter, thereby solidifying our bond of friendship (whether or not they know it yet).

Despite my loving peanut butter, I'm actually not a huge fan of peanut butter cookies. I often find them dry, dense, and crumbly...it's like, at some point in the baking process, all of the rich, creamy, satiating qualities of peanut butter get sucked out. But I was determined to make peanut butter cookies that represent everything I love about this wonderful little legume, cookies that bring comfort and joy and maybe a bit of nostalgia with every soft, chewy bite.

I ended up settling on a user-submitted recipe from AllRecipes.com. It earned a 4.5-star rating from 924 reviews, so I figured it was a pretty safe bet. I noticed that many of the reviews made similar alterations to achieve a thicker, softer cookie, so I followed their advice and increased the amount of flour and peanut butter.  And speaking of peanut butter, I opted for Trader Joe's Crunchy Salted peanut butter (only $3), which has big peanut flavor, a thick yet supple consistency, and the perfect amount of peanut bits. I'm happy to report they came out as planned. I ended up with dainty, bite-sized morsels, with a soft, slighty chewy texture and little surprises of crunch. To my surprise, the cookies actually stayed fresh for days in tupperware (and mine probably isn't airtight). See below for the recipe. Let the peanut celebration begin!

Peanut Butter Cookies (adapted from AllRecipes.com)

Yield: About 4 dozen

-Ingredients -

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

-Instructions -

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Using an electric mixer, cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars. Beat in eggs one at a time.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gently stir into batter in three additions. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate dough for 1 hour.
4. Once chilled, roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on ungreased baking sheets. Flatten each ball with a fork, making a criss-cross pattern. Bake for about 8-9 minutes or until cookies begin to brown. Do not over-bake!