Peanut Butter Cookies

While I was on vacation, my neighbors were great: gathered the mail, watered the garden/flowers and mowed the lawn. As a thank you, I baked some peanut butter cookies for them. Although peanut butter was not part of the CSA "box," everyone loves cookies so I thought I'd include them on the blog!

Peanut Butter Cookies

(Yields about 5 dozen cookies)

Ingredients:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup white sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 eggs (I know, this is weird - use egg beaters instead of trying to divide an egg)
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/3 cup chunky peanut butter (you can use smooth peanut butter, but I like the consistency of the cookies with the chunks!)
• 3 cups flour
• 3/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper
2. In a bowl, beat (with an electric/hand mixer) the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy
3. Beat in peanut butter 
4. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla
5. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt
6. Gradually add flour mixture to peanut butter mixture. Beat until just incorporated
7. At this point, refrigerate your dough if it is too soft. If your dough isn't too soft continue onward!
8. Roll the batter into one-inch balls and place on prepared baking sheets
9. Using the tip of a fork, make a crisscross pattern on each cookie
10. Sprinkle cookies with white sugar
11. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned
12. Remove to a wire rack and allow to cool (and eat!)

Here are the cookies as rolled balls...


...making the crisscross pattern...


...ready for the oven...






...and the finished cookies, yum!




Enjoy and thanks for reading!