Peanut Butter Cookies
Peanut butter is a danger ingredient for me. If I have an open jar I simply am not able to resist sneaking the odd spoonful. There’s a point where it seems inevitable I will finish the entire jar – sooner or later, and for the sake of discipline it might as well be sooner. (For the record, marzipan and white chocolate are equally irresistible.)
In British ‘English’ these are truly ‘cookies’ as opposed to what I’d call a biscuit. Biscuits are ‘dunk-able’, smaller and will snap. These are larger and altogether gooier. They are, unfortunately, most delectable on the day you bake them – but, then, isn’t everything? Much like the jar of Peanut Butter (and I have a particular fondness for SunPat) I find these Peanut Butter Cookies almost irresistible.
Sadly, I almost always have the wherewithal to bake them. Assuming, of course, I’ve taken the risk and bought the Peanut Butter.
I use a convenient whole block of softened butter. (That’s butter that you can spread on bread without any effort, as opposed to melted butter.) Often I weigh fridge cold butter and leave it to soften in my mixer bowl, but for these I let the butter soften in its wrapper, plop the lot in the bowl when I’m ready to bake and carefully fold the generously smeared butter wrapper up and pop into the fridge. It’s brilliant for laying across the top of a chicken when you want to roast one … Lazy basting.
Two sugars. Caster and Light Muscovado. Beat everything together until it’s pale and fluffy. Don’t skimp on this bit.
When it looks like this, you add one beaten egg. The mixture shouldn’t curdle. Give it a good beating.
Then it’s vanilla extract and the crunchy peanut butter.
Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and salt together. It’s important to do that because the bicarb and the cream of tartar are your raising agents and you want them distributed evenly through the cookie or it might rise unevenly. I add a very small amount of salt to compensate for the fact I always bake with unsalted butter and I know the saltiness of my brand of Peanut Butter – you may have to adjust. Add these dry ingredients to the mixture in the bowl. Purist would say you should move to a metal spoon but, to be honest, I always put my mixture on the slowest setting and combine. No more.
Next the porridge oats. Again, combine.
That’s it. At this point, I transfer my mixture to a pyrex bowl. Yes, it’s more washing up which I usually avoid but I find that knob at the base of the mixer bowl gets in the way …
The only tricky thing about baking cookies is the ‘baking’. Seconds turn a fantastic cookie into an okay one. Minutes turn it into a disaster. It really helps if you get your raw cookies the same size. Then they’ll bake in the same time and you have a fighting chance.
I use an ice-cream scoop – one I will forever associate with school mashed potatoes. That’s not a positive association (and this isn’t a great scoop for hard ice-cream) but it retains its place in my kitchen drawer for this very purpose.
Plop onto a lined baking sheet. This mixture is very soft and will spread, so keep each blob at least 8cm/3½” apart.
It’s possible to freeze at this point. If you are going to do that you can place your cookie mixture blobs closer together. Open freeze, then place in rigid containers with each layer divided by baking parchment. Defrost before baking.
Otherwise, it’s time to bake. Ovens vary and cookies are sensitive. I bake in an up-to-temperature aga on the top runners of my Baking Oven for 10 minutes, reversing the tray halfway. Otherwise, 170ºC/Gas Mark 3/325ºF for longer – about 15 minutes. To compensate for ‘hot spots’ reverse the baking sheet half way.
The baking powder and cream of tartar will cause the cookie to puff up and the soft dough will have spread. You are looking for a ‘set’ top and slightly golden. As in this photo, it looks like it could do with a bit longer – that’s the time I remove it.
And let the cookies cool on the baking tray. They deflate and take on a lovely cracked top. The acceptable face of cellulite.
Moorish. Calorific. And very lovely.
Eat!
Peanut Butter Cookies – Makes 27
- scant 250g block of unsalted butter
- 180g/6oz caster sugar
- 180g/6oz light muscovado sugar
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 100g/3½oz crunchy peanut butter
- 180g/6oz plain flour/all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt – you may need to adjust this depending on your brand of peanut butter. I use SunPat.
- 120g/4¼oz porridge oats
Pre-heat your oven to 170ºC/Gas Mark 3/325ºF.
Cream together the light muscovado sugar, caster sugar and unsalted butter until it is pale and as fluffy as you can make it.
Add the beaten egg. Mix. Then the vanilla extract and peanut butter. Mix again until everything is smooth.
Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and salt. Add to the sugar and butter mixture. Mix to combine.
Then add the porridge oats. Mix until just combined.
Scoop the 27 cookies onto baking trays, leaving plenty of room for expansion. (8cm/3½”). Bake in batches, at the centre of the oven and reversing the tray halfway through, for about 15 minutes. (Aga: top set of runners in the Baking Oven and check at 10 minutes.) Remove when the cookie is golden and just set. Leave to cool on the baking trays.
Eat.