Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies

From Martha Stewart online (link Below). I was given Martha’s ‘Cookies’ DVD for Christmas (thank you – you know who you are !), and I so enjoyed watching it. Here in the UK we don’t get any of her TV shows. From the moment I started watching I felt myself propelled into the kitchen at high speed to bake cookies!

I have never really thought of myself as a cookie maker. Although I like cookies I would have generally in the past wanted to bake cupcakes or muffins to fulfil an individual portion requirement.

Now although the cupcake maker in me is alive and well, I am just so into baking cookies, I love the way the dough makes lots, and how it feels somehow like a production line, especially when they are all lined up cooking or cooling. I’ve recently bought a couple of American ice cream scoops (from Ebay.com) where the sellers send to the UK, just so I can have perfectly shaped cookies like Martha or Tish Boyle (The Good Cookie) or whoever. Not that I needed them here, as these are rolled and flattened.

I have often read or heard from friends that they would like to own a tea room or coffee shop, and I have never thought of that as something I would fancy as a job. I wonder though if there is a bit of wanting to feed people on a catering scale present in me deep down, because seeing rows of cookies brings out a joy so tangible in me that I can hardly believe it!

This is a very simple cookie recipe, but they are really yummy. Unlike so many other cookies they taste just like the uncooked dough –and it was good too! The recipe makes 48, the first time I made this I halved the recipe but I won’t make that mistake again - they disappeared very quickly. If you want to make half the recipe, break the egg into a measuring jug and beat lightly, then pour half of the measurement out to leave half an eggs worth in the jug, well at least that’s what I did.

http://www.marthastewart.com

Peanut Cookies
1 ½ cups crunchy peanut butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
½ cup (1 stick) 4 oz unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
1 ½ cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Preheat oven to 350 C (170 F). In a bowl whisk together the flour and baking powder, set aside.
In a kitchen aid etc beat the peanut butter, butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg. Gradually add flour mixture, beating to combine.
Pinch off the dough by the tablespoon and roll into balls. Place 2 inches apart in parchment (or magic carpet) baking sheets. Using a fork press balls twice to make a criss-cross pattern. Bake for 18 – 22 minutes, rotating half way. Cook on a wire wrack. Makes 48.