Peanut Butter Cookies

So in the never-ending quest for yummy cookies I have definitely been turning to my favorite blogs and hitting Google reader a lot. Recently I decided that we needed something to spice up our chocolate chip-snicker doodle routine and thought peanut butter cookies sounded really good. So I headed to my reader and found these awesome Peanut Butter Cookies on one of my favorite blogs, Annie's Eats. This is a recipe that she got out of the cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, which is a cookbook I really want to get. These cookies are really good and, even though my computer printed the recipe funny and it came out in 3 pages, they are really easy to make. I definitely recommend them. However, one thing I learned was that I really needed to ignore the baking time listed in the recipe and just watch them because the first batch got a little too dark in our gas oven.

Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

Found on Annie's Eats

From Baking: From My Home to Your by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
pinch of grated nutmeg
2 sticks (8 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 ½ cups chopped salted peanuts (I left these out)
about ½ cup sugar, for rolling

Directions:
Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Working with a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed for a minute or two, until smooth and creamy. Add the peanut butter and beat for another minute. Add the sugars and beat for 3 minutes more. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl and, on low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they just disappear. Mix in the chopped peanuts. You’ll have a soft, pliable (mushable, actually) dough.

Pour the ½ cup of sugar into a small bowl. Working with a level tablespoonful of dough for each cookie, roll the dough between your palms into balls and drop the balls, a couple at a time, into the sugar. Roll the balls around in the sugar to coat them, then place on the baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between them. Dip the tines of a fork in sugar and press the tines against each ball first in one direction and then in a perpendicular direction – you should have a flattened round of dough with crisscross indentations.

Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point. When done, the cookies will be lightly colored and still a little soft. Let the cookies sit on the sheets for a minute before transferring them to cooling racks with a wide metal spatula. Cool to room temperature. (I ended up baking mine for about 9-10 minutes.)

Repeat with the remaining dough, making sure to cool the baking sheets between batches.