Peanutty Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts

Who doesn't love peanut butter cookies? Other than those who are allergic, of course...

In the past year, I expanded my cookie repertoire to peanut butter cookies. Sam loves them, Becky loves them, and my sister Amanda loves them. In honor of Auntie Amanda's upcoming visit, I'm finally blogging the recipe that I use. Of course, it's basically a Cook's Illustrated recipe for "Big Super-Nutty Peanut Butter Cookies", which I grabbed from an adaptation here. They contain extra-crunchy peanut-butter as well as ground peanuts, so I call them "Peanutty Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts" which is even more accurate.



Peanutty Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups (12.5 oz) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
16 Tbs (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup packed (7 oz) dark brown sugar
1 cup (6.5 oz) granulated sugar
1 cup "natural" extra-crunchy peanut butter*
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup roasted, salted peanuts, ground in food processor.

Preheat oven to 350F. Put flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and whisk to mix and aerate. Put butter in stand mixer with creamer attachment and beat for a minute until it starts to cream. Add sugars and mix for 3 minutes until creamy. Mix in peanut butter, followed by eggs (one at a time) and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients by hand (with a spatula) and finally stir in ground peanuts.

Put spoonfuls of dough on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Using a fork dipped in cold water, lightly press on cookies to make the characteristic peanut-butter-cookie-crisscross design. Bake for 10-12 minutes, 1 sheet at a time. There is enough dough to make ~3 dozen depending on their size. After each batch is done, let cookies sit on cookie sheet for a couple minutes to set, and then transfer to wire cooling rack. We usually freeze at least a dozen to save; they thaw very well.

* We use Trader Joe's Extra-Crunchy natural peanut butter which has two ingredients: peanuts and salt. I don't know how these cookies will taste with a Jif-type peanut butter, with with all the extra hydrogenated oils and "sugar" I'm sure they'd end up quite different.