Making Your Own Peanut Butter –

Peanut Butter Cookies

Making Peanut Butter Cookies is pretty easy. And this is one cookie most bakeries have figured out. But I’m still looking for the Perfect Peanut Butter Cookie! Most Peanut Butter Cookie connoisseurs have their idea of perfect. Mine is a cookie I remember from my childhood. It was slightly dense, very intense peanut taste, not too sweet, neither caky nor crispy, and slightly sandy in texture. And where did I taste this delicious cookie? Sierra Vista Elementary School! The school cafeteria had a full kitchen … And I believe all the food for the school was cooked in this kitchen at least initially. I have convinced myself the peanut butter was made there too.

I’ve always received compliments on my peanut butter cookie recipes.  (Thank you David for saying mine were better than your wife’s. Yikes.) Yes, I make the ones with the candy kiss too. I certainly appreciated the compliments but realized too, many of my friends didn’t bake. And let’s face it, there is something about a homemade cookie!

After I determined, whether fact or not, the answer to the Perfect Peanut Butter Cookie was adding homemade peanut butter to the recipe it was a done deal. I wasn’t sure how to go about this but…. My first attempt was with raw Spanish peanuts. If anyone tells you the skins pop off easily after roasting, hmm, nope. And it’s messy. Raw peanuts have very little taste and need lots of toasting to achieve what we would describe as a peanut taste. This attempt was a failure. I took a big leap and moved right to roasted salted peanuts. My mistake was adding too much peanut oil. I liked the idea of no honey or sweetener. I moved forward and made these cookies with the second batch of peanut butter and while all was delicious the Perfect Peanut Butter Cookie is still out there.

Recipe

Makes about 2 dozen cookies (2-3 inches in size)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

1/2 Cup butter (or substitute vegetable shortening for half the butter for a chewier cookie)
1/2 Cup homemade peanut butter (homemade peanut butter recipe to follow)
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup brown sugar
One egg
1/2 Teaspoon vanilla
1/4 Teaspoon salt
3/4 Teaspoon baking soda
1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour

Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars.

Add egg and cream thoroughly. Add vanilla. Mix.

Whisk flour, salt and baking soda together.

Add flour mixture to creamed mixture. Mix well.

Roll dough into approximate one inch balls.

Place on parchment paper on your cookie sheet and use a fork to crisscross each cookie to flatten slightly. Optional: Add chopped peanuts to the top before the crisscross for a different look and crunch.

These do spread so space 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden for a cake texture or bake to more brown for a crunchy texture.

recipe

6 Ounces of roasted in oil and salted peanuts

Place in food processor. Process until your desired texture with stops to scrape sides.

It will look crumbly at first then will continue to a creamy.

If it doesn’t get as creamy as you’d like add a teaspoon or two of peanut oil.

Need sweetness add a teaspoon or two of honey. (For this recipe you won’t need it but if you are making this recipe for other uses you may.)

Makes about 1/2 cup peanut butter.