Chez G

Ken’s mother’s recipe.

Ingredients

• 1 cup shortening (also known as Crisco)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt (I typically use a little less, maybe a 1/2 t.)

Directions

Beat the shortening and peanut butter together. Add the white and brown sugar and beat well. Add the two eggs and beat. Then add the vanilla, baking soda, and salt and mix well. Add the flour and mix well.

Spoon onto a nonstick (or greased) cookie sheet. Using a floured fork, you can press the top of the cookies to make a criss-cross pattern. Cook at 350 deg F until very lightly brown, usually about ten minutes.

My mother recommends using “Jif” peanut butter (which is what I ate as a child), but I now eat the “natural” type of peanut butter (the kind where the oil is separated out when you buy it — so the cookies were made with Smucker’s natural peanut butter.

These are the cookies I make now. The recipe is from the Cooks Illustrated Light Cookbook. These are very good. Be sure to let the butter cool a bit after nuking it.

Ingredients

• 1.25 cups all-purpose flour
• 0.25 teaspoon baking soda
• 0.25 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons (0.25 stick) butter, melted and cooled
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons chunky peanut butter
• 0.24 cup dry-roasted peanuts, chopped coarsely

Directions

1. Oven @ 350. Cover two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whisk in a medium bowl: flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Whisk in a large bowl: butter, egg, and vanilla. Stir in brown sugar and peanut butter until smooth.
4. Stir flour mixture and peanuts into butter mixture.
5. Make cookies from about 1 tablespoon of batter. Press down on cookie with a wet fork to make criss-cross pattern, leaving cookie about half its height (1 cm).
6. Bake one cookie sheet at a time. Bake 6 minutes; rotate sheet; then another 5-6 minutes. Careful: do not overbake. Cookies will not look done but will be slightly brown at the edges. If you overbake the cookies will be fine but hard when cool. Correctly done cookies will still be soft.