A couple of weeks ago, I made some peanut butter cookies ... and I didn't like them very much. They were dry and hard. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong with them. My best guess was they there was too much flour in the recipe. Well, if you just flip ahead a few pages in The Book, you'll find this recipe* for Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies. Time to test the theory. As you'll see, I was wrong. It wasn't the flour.This recipe is very easy to make. Only four ingredients, and you've probably already got them in your kitchen: Peanut butter, sugar, an egg and some baking soda. Beat together the peanut butter and the sugar, and then beat in the egg and baking soda.
The Book says to roll level teaspoons of the dough into balls and put them onto a cookie sheet. This was a little difficult because the dough was pretty dry and crumbly. Then, I flattened the dough balls with a fork (making that distinctive peanut butter cookie cross-hatch pattern) and baked them for a little while.
How were they? They were better than the other peanunt butter cookies ... but not much better. They were dry and crumbly (just like the dough), but at least they weren't hard. They were crisp instead. What I'm looking for, though, is a moist and chewey peanut butter cookie. Is that too much to ask for?
Two very similar peanut butter cookie recipes in The Book, and both were disappointments.
Date Cooked: March 22, 2009
Degree of Difficulty: Easy
Rating: C+
* This recipe from epicurious is not the recipe from The Book. It's actually from Bon Appetit, but it's similar enough. The Book's recipe uses granulated sugar instead of brown, and it omits the chocolate chips and vanilla extract.
2 comments:
Adam, what kind of pb did you use? I've actually used this recipe professionally for years (I know it by heart) but the trick is to use Jif or Skippy--not the wonderful, natural organic pb that foodies tend to buy.
I don't know where I went wrong. With the last reciep, I used reduced fat Skippy chunky, and I assumed that contributed to some of the hardness and dryness. With this recipe, I used regular, full-fat Skippy chunky.
Maybe I beat the peanut butter and sugar too long? Could that be the problem?
If you say that this is a good recipe. I'm willing to try it again. I'm hoping that I'll be proved wrong because I really like peanut butter cookies.
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