Peanut Butter Cookies, easy, old fashioned and delicious. A classic recipe that I've been making since I was little and that's a really really long time ago.

Nothing dramatic, cutting edge or terribly fascinating here today.  Today it's about classic, easy and delicious.  When I was a little kid, really little by the handwriting on my stained recipe, my Auntie Mary used to make peanut butter cookies. They were delicious.  I remember carefully writing the recipe out on lined paper and putting it in the binder cookbook I had (and still have).  On the top is written, "Auntie Mary's Peanut Butter Cookies".  Did she invent it? Probably not but forever, they will be Auntie Mary's cookies.  The recipe is probably on the back of a peanut butter jar somewhere but it's the way I did it then and still do it.

Tracy's Auntie Mary's Peanut Butter Cookies

Preheat oven to 375

In a bowl, combine:

2 cups all purpose flour (you can substitute SelfRaising flour, just omit the powder and salt)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

In a big bowl (or kitchenaid mixer)

Cream together:
1 cup shortening (or 1/2 shortening 1/2 margarine)
1 cup peanut butter (smooth)
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar

When it's smooth and gorgeous, add:

2 eggs
splash of vanilla
1 Tablespoon milk

When it's combined and creamy, add the flour mixture a little at a time until it's all combined.  No need to beat like crazy here, it's a cookie not an enemy.

DONE

NOW then, frequently I find myself adding a 12oz bag of chocolate chips, I like milk chocolate but semisweet works as does a combination.


Sometimes, when I'm particularly unhappy, stressed or missing whatever it is that I need to make my life happy, I will make these cookies in  a big bowl and a wooden spoon.

There's something cathartic about creaming sugar and fat with the back of a spoon instead of using the equipment.  If you have the chance, make these with a bowl and a spoon instead of the machine, they taste different, better.

Spoon onto cookie sheets and  press a fork that's coated in flour into each one to make a lovely crisscross pattern.

Bake about 9-11 minutes?  Cook them till you like them, longer for crispy and shorter for soft.

Cool these on a wooden board, it makes the bottom the perfect crispness.

Line them up like soldiers and eat with joy in your heart.  These are best eaten piled up high on a small plate so it looks like more, and with a large glass of icy cold milk for dunking.

Go make them, now

/tracy