GIANT PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

 

If you love peanut butter and peanuts, these are your cookie.  The original recipe also had a chocolate ganache filling, but that was really just too much.  They're super easy to make, and like most cookies, freeze well.  

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp smooth peanut butter (best with organic peanut butter)

8 oz unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups minus 1 Tbsp sugar

2 eggs

1tsp vanilla

2 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda’3/4 tsp salt

6 oz dry-roasted unsalted nuts

Sugar for sprinkling (either table sugar or sanding sugar)

Preheat oven to 375ºF. 

Using an electric mixer, cream together the peanut butter and butter. Add the sugar and cream for 1 minute on medium speed.  Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla.  

Either sift together the flour, baking soda and salt or aerate them with a whisk.  Then add the flour mixture all at once to the butter-peanut butter mixture.  Mix until the flour is incorporated.  Stir in the peanuts.

Scoop the dough, about ¼ cups for each, onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets, allowing plenty of room (I usually get 6 per sheet).  The recipe calls for you to press down lightly with a large fork in two directions to get a cross, flattening the dough slightly.  However, I find that my potato masher works even better.  

Be sure to keep dipping the fork or masher in sugar so they don't stick to the cookie dough. Sprinkle with sugar.

Bake for 12 minutes, turning the pan half-way.  Remove from the oven and cool on the baking sheets.  The cookies will be very soft, but as they cool they will firm up somewhat, though they will still be soft.

Makes about 18 cookies.