The Best Peanut Butter Cookies are also known as Prince Liam’s Peanut Butter Cookies.
The Best Peanut Butter Cookies:
What makes these the best peanut butter cookies? The texture of these cookies is crisp and chewy, and they are full of wonderful peanut butter flavor. The criss-crossing that gives peanut butter cookies their classic “marking” stays put in the baking process to make these the most perfect looking peanut butter cookies too.
This perfect peanut butter cookie recipe comes from the Cookies for Kids’ Cancer Best Bake Sale Cookbook by Gretchen Holt-Witt. These cookies are for Liam, a little boy who was diagnosed with pediatric cancer when he was just 2 1/2 years old. His mom raised money by having a lot of bake sales that all contributed to finding a cure for pediatric cancer. To get involved in the cause or learn more, visit www.CookiesForKidsCancer.org. These cookies are known as “Prince Liam’s Peanut Butter Cookies” in the book. If you’re someone who likes to bake cookies, this is a good book to have on your cookbook shelf. It’s full of great cookie recipes!
How to make Perfect Peanut Butter Cookies:
In one bowl, mix shortening, peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar, egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, use a whisk to combine the flour, baking powder and salt. It’s always a good idea to whisk the dry ingredients separately so they’re ready to combine with the wet ingredients. Then you won’t have to mix the cookie dough quite as much, which can result in a tougher texture cookie.
The cookie dough is rolled into balls (no refrigeration needed). Then the cookies are criss-crossed with a sugared fork. This is the classic look for a peanut butter cookie.
Cookies are placed about 1 1/2-inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
The cookies are baked for 12 minutes, and you can see that they don’t spread out much.
There are three Key Ingredients you don’t want to mess with!
The recipe calls for using shortening. Use shortening! Don’t use butter. If you try to substitute butter for the shortening, you’ll end up with soft and sandy-like cookies instead of the desired texture of being crisp and chewy.
The recipe also calls for using natural peanut butter. It just works in this recipe to make the best peanut butter cookies, so be sure to use natural!
Use a room temperature egg. Your cookie dough will mix more evenly if you use a room temp egg.
These cookies taste fantastic. I’ve baked a lot of peanut butter cookies in my life, and this recipe truly makes the Best Peanut Butter Cookies. If you are planning a bake sale any time soon, I advise that you make this recipe. And they are perfect for everyday munching too.
You absolutely have to have milk with these cookies. And dunking them? …even better!!
Here are a few more cookie recipes you might like to try:
- Chocolate Cake Mix M&M Cookies
- Cake Mix Snickerdoodles
- Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies
- Twix Bar Chocolate Pudding Cookies
- Marshmallow Fluff Cookies
- Maple Crackletop Cookies
- Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Nutella Cookies
Best Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup shortening
- ½ cup granulated white sugar
- ½ cup packed dark brown sugar
- ½ cup natural-style peanut butter, at room temperature
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- 1¼ teaspoons baking powder
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- additional sugar for fork criss-crossing
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉. Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Place the shortening, sugars, peanut butter, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl. Use an electric hand mixer to beat these ingredients on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl, until all is well-combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the peanut butter mixture and beat on low speed until well-combined (1 to 2 minutes). Don't over-mix.
- Scoop up a tablespoon of the cookie dough and use your hands to roll it into a ball. Dip the tines of a fork into sugar and press down on each ball of cookie dough, forming a criss-cross pattern on top. Repeat with the rest of the cookie dough, and place the cookies about 1½-inches apart on the cookie sheets.
- Bake until the edges of the cookies are lightly browned, 12 to 14 minutes. Cool and eat!
Patricia Hinshaw
Saturday 1st of October 2011
Your peanut butter cookies look delicious. I love your photography work done on this project. but best of all I like the way you are reaching out to others to help, you don't get to many young people that will do that these days.