Twinkle's Kitchen | Peanut Butter Cookies

INDIANAPOLIS - I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with peanut butter.

As a child, there was always a peanut butter sandwich on hand somewhere. It became like a one-hit wonder pop song, played over and over until I just couldn’t stand the taste of it for a long, long time.

Photos: 10 Perfect Peanut Butter Recipes

Fortunately, having a good 15-year break, along with becoming a parent, changed all that. I’ve matured enough to let it back into my life on a fairly regular basis. Spoon by spoon, cookie by cookie, Reese’s Cup by Reese’s Cup.

As a professional pastry chef, peanut butter was a big part of my job. I spent a portion of my time making giant cookies in the bakery. The customer favorite by far was the simple peanut butter cookie.

Made in the same manner as a Snickerdoodle, peanut butter cookies have that crispy, caramelized sugary coating. And, of course, boast the traditional hatch pattern. Delicious simplicity at its best.

Finding the right recipe for the perfect peanut butter cookie is no easy task. Peanut butter cookies tend to have quite a bit of sugar. Once baked, those sugars crystallize and make cookies harden.

To avoid that, you have to have the right balance of butter and sugar and flour. So far, the recipe below is the best I’ve found, tweaked here and there through experimentation to get the moistest cookie possible.

The recipe

1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 tbs. vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
* ½ cup sugar for rolling

Makes 6 dozen cookies.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Beat butter, peanut butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, and then add the vanilla.

3. Sift baking powder and salt with flour in a separate bowl.

4. Add flour mixture one cup at a time into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.

5. Roll out dough about a fourth of an inch thick on a lighty-floured surface. Cut into whatever shape you prefer. Lay the cut out cookies on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and sprinkle with sugar.

*Pro-tip: Dip cookie cutters in flour for easier release of dough.  

a. If you prefer round cookies, take a tablespoon of dough and roll into a ball. Pour the * ½ cup of sugar onto a separate plate. Roll the cookie ball in the sugar, coating lightly. Flatten the dough ball with your fingers into a disc shape on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  

6. To get the traditional hatch pattern on your cookies, press a fork into the top of the dough to create a crisscross pattern.

7. Bake for 12-18 minutes until they are just getting golden on the bottom. Any longer and you’ll likely end up with a dry cookie.

8. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Whether you love it or hate it, peanut butter is a truly American creation. It is a symbol of what America is all about.

Early in our country’s history, a Southern black scientist discovered what was to become one of the most important building blocks of all American pantries. It was seriously groundbreaking. However, peanut butter remains quite underrated for such an iconic American food.

So raise your milk and fresh-baked cookies high and toast to this American original – glorious peanut butter.

For more on food and for more recipes check out twinklevanwinkle.com.

Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked 300 apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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