As a promoter of the peanut, George Washington Carver of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute wrote a research bulletin in 1916 called How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption. In it he included three recipes for peanut cookies made with crushed peanuts. It wasn’t until the early 1920s that peanut butter was listed as an ingredient in the cookies. The first reference to making crisscross patterns by pressing the dough with a fork was in a recipe that appeared in New York’s Schenectady Gazette in 1932. This extra step became popular after it was included in a recipe in the 1933 edition of Pillsbury’s Balanced Recipes. The thought behind the practice is that without being pressed the dense dough will not cook evenly.
Recipe Servings: 24
+ 3 hours resting
Ingredients
- ½ cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup peanut butter
- 1 egg
- 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
Directions
- Beat the butter until creamy, about 2 minutes.
- Add the sugar and brown sugar, beating for an additional 2 minutes.
- Mix in the peanut butter and egg.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl.
- Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, stirring to combine.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Shape the dough into 1¼-inch balls. Place the balls about 3 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet.
- Flatten the balls in a crisscross pattern using a fork dipped in sugar.
- Bake the cookies for about 9–10 minutes, or until light brown.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool.
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