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We love these classic peanut butter cookies, especially around the holidays. My mom dips them in chocolate, and they are a family favorite!
Day 11 of Christmas Cookies. Whaa?????
I keep going back to the archives and counting and re-counting, because I feel like there is no way we can possibly be at the end of the cookie baking fun! I totally thought I was going to get so bored of posting cookies, but it turns out I could probably be happy with posting nothing but cookies all year long.
I cannot wait to do this again next year, it’s definitely going to be a Something Swanky tradition from now on. Although in future years, I hope to step outside the box a little more. I got kind of obsessed with classic cookies this year and didn’t get too creative. Which is FINE (because, YUM!), but get ready for some creativity in 2016. I already have some fun ideas rolling around in my ever-cookie-loving brain!
So. Speaking of classic cookies… Peanut Butter Cookies! I was shocked to realize I didn’t have a recipe for good old fashioned peanut butter cookies here, and I knew I had to fix that right away.
Plus, this is the perfect time for me to make PB cookies, because they are a holiday favorite in my family!
When my mom makes these, she always dips part of the cookie in melted chocolate chips. And we gobble.them.up.
Naturally.
If you’re a regular reader over here, you know I typically advocate using chocolatemelting candy for this sort of a thing instead of chocolate chips. The reason for this is because melting candymelts easier, dips smoother, hardens faster and better (without refrigeration), and doesn’t melt on your hands or in packaging– without having to temper chocolate! Overall, it’s what I recommend for any sort of chocolate dipping 99.9% of the time.
But this is the .01% exception. My mom always uses melted chocolate chips, and I wouldn’t make this cookie any other way, because it just wouldn’t taste the same!
Not that melting chocolate chips is particularly hard, but if you don’t do a lot of chocolate melting on a regular basis, there are a few helpful things you might want to know before beginning:
First off, a double boiler is the best way to melt chocolate chips so they don’t seize or burn. It melts them evenly and slowly, and it’s really the best way to go.
But you know me… if I can’t microwave it, I probably won’t do it.Chocolate chips burn easily in the microwave if you aren’t careful. You MUST, MUST, MUST use a microwave safe bowl. If it’s too hot to handle after a few minutes in the microwave, it’s not microwave safe. Not for melting chocolate anyway.
Next, you should microwave your chocolate at 50% power in 30 second increments, stirring in between. If your microwave doesn’t allow you to go 50%, you’ll have to stir the chocolate more frequently.
Last of all, you have to know that since this chocolate isn’t tempered and contains cocoa butter, it will take much longer to cool and harden than tempered chocolate or melting candy would. And even then, it still won’t harden to the extent either of those other two would unless you stick them in the fridge (which is good too! I totally do that).
Semi-sweet morsels just don’twork like that. But we don’t mind, because they areso good 🙂
I hope you love these cookies as much as we do! And I have it on good authority, they’re one of Santa’s favorites too 😉
Classic Peanut Butter Cookies
Yield: 3-4 dozen
We love these classic peanut butter cookies, especially around the holidays. My mom dips them in chocolate, and they are a family favorite!
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon bakingpowder
1 teaspoon bakingsoda
2teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
optional: 1/2 cup granulated sugar forcoating the dough
optional: 2 cups chocolate chips, melted, for dipping cookies
Instructions
Cream together the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smooth and fluffy.
Mix in the eggs and vanilla.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt. Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients and mix until dough forms.
Roll the dough into balls (2 tbsps) and coat in the sugar. Place on an ungreased baking sheet.
Use a for to press a criss cross into each dough ball. Bake for 8-9 minutes, until edges look set. For softer cookies, transfer to a wire cooling rack immediately to cool completely. For firmer cookies, let cool on the baking sheet.
Once completely cool, melt chocolate chips according the directions in the post. Dip each cookie halfway in the melted chocolate, and let cool on a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.
More peanut butter faves:
Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies
Peanut Butter ButterscotchFudge
Reese’s Pieces Rice Krispies Treats
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French Tart Recipe: Classic Apple or Berry Pastry with Cream
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The reason is that peanut butter cookie dough is dense, and unpressed, each cookie will not cook evenly. Using a fork to press the dough is a convenience of tool; bakers can also use a cookie shovel (spatula).
So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.
Why You Need to Chill Your Cookie Dough. For starters, chilling prevents cookies from spreading out too quickly once they're in the oven. If you use a higher fat butter (like Kerrygold), chilling your dough is absolutely essential. Popping your dough in the fridge allows the fats to cool.
Indulge in the simplest yet most satisfying treat with these 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies. Made with just peanut butter, sugar, and an egg, these cookies are a breeze to whip up, requiring minimal effort and time (under 30 minutes!).
If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.
If you're wanting to use natural (no sugar added) peanut butter, the cookies will be less sweet and they will likely spread out more. Using natural peanut butter will change the structure and texture of the cookies. Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour.
The most common mistake with peanut butter cookies is using the wrong type of peanut butter. The BEST peanut butter for today's cookies is a processed creamy peanut butter, preferably Jif or Skippy.
It's been the “mark” of this classic treat for more than eighty years, and for good reason: by flattening this dense cookie dough, it ensures that each cookie bakes evenly. Our kitchen-tested recipe is a classic.
You baked your cookies and they came out an oily greasy mess. Urgh, what an awful feeling! If you've had this happen to you, odds are you made one of two mistakes: either you didn't allow the ingredients to thoroughly mix during the creaming process or you didn't allow the dough to rest enough before baking.
Additional butter or oil on your pan can cause the bottom of your cookies to burn, and sometimes the sides if the fats pool at all between the cookies. (And I probably don't need to tell you, burnt oil is also a PAIN to clean off pans!)
Unlike many other cookies, peanut butter biscuits only fully harden once they've been removed from the oven. Here's how to tell when peanut butter cookies are done: The tops of the cookies are a uniform light brown.They're soft to the touch but not moist or mushy.
Sure, you can skip the chilling step and bake the dough right away, but doing so runs the risk of flat disks with dry edges and a brittle texture; a far cry for the plush, chewy cookies with fudge-like centers we all crave.
Cookies become hard when the moisture in them evaporates. This can be caused by leaving them out in the air for too long, baking them for too long, or storing them improperly. The lack of moisture makes the cookies hard and dry, which makes them difficult to enjoy.
While there may be countless variations, each cookie at the core has four ingredients – butter, sugar, flour & eggs. The proportions of ingredients and the methods of mixing are what define our cookies. Dough spreads – Inside the hot oven, the butter starts to melt and the dough gradually starts to spread out.
Introduction: My name is Kimberely Baumbach CPA, I am a gorgeous, bright, charming, encouraging, zealous, lively, good person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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