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

Cake Mix Peanut Butter Cookies

A hankering is a dangerous thing, here.

I sat in my living room last night convinced that who ever was in charge of cake in this house had failed miserably. 

I got up this morning and realized that as much as I wanted some cake, I wanted cookies.  I wanted cookies N.O.W.  

I went through my mental cookie inventory and it all seemed too much work.  Seriously, there's a crisis happening when you want cookies but can't muster the strength, vision or bother to actually stand up to make them.  I was having one of those moments.

I searched through my cupboard for inspiration and came across a cake mix I'd bought for a dump cake.  Maybe I'd make a cake from a mix.  To be honest, I don't remember the last time I made a cake from a box and wondered if I'd even LIKE the flavor.  I think I've spoiled myself the way I spoiled Connor's tastebuds.  In any event, I had a bit of an epiphany...cake mix is what? It's just a box full of, wait for it...flour, sugar, baking powder, salt ... hmmmmm, in a box...  BINGO! 

Here's what happened at my house this morning: 

In a mixer, combine;

1 cup peanut butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 Tablespoons water

healthy teaspoon of Vanilla

Beat it

Add 1 boxed yellow cake mix. (I just dumped it in and mixed for a minute or so on medium)

Mix it till it looks like cookie dough.  Scoop into little balls and place on cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 12 minutes.
  

I used a small ice cream scoop to make round balls then some I pushed a spoon into with some raspberry jam, some I flattened with the peanut butter cookie criss cross, some I left as balls, some I added chocolate chips to after they baked, some I rolled chocolate chips into the ball and then just flattened slightly.  It made about 48 cookies.

Oh yes, this is a keeper idea!

     

Go make some, and eat them.

/enjoy!