American Century Cookbook Peanut Butter Cookies

I'm a day late in posting this week, and I apologize for that. It's been a bit of an odd week. So, without further ado, let's get to the peanut buttery heart of the post!

(For the record, I also still haven't pulled the tomatoes in from outside, yet. That's how weird my week got.)

I really enjoy my American Century Cookbook. It's got a lot of great recipes in it, as well as stories - both about the recipes, and about what was going on in American kitchens at various times throughout "the century." If you can find a copy of it, I'd highly recommend picking it up. Here's a good look at the cover so you know what to be on the lookout for:

The recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies is here:

Re-reading it, now, I realize that my fork was supposed to be "floured" when I was making the crisscross pattern. That makes so much sense. Oops.

A great thing about these, is that there really aren't that many ingredients, when you come right down to it. They're pretty much straightforward:

The recipe does call for butter and vegetable shortening, but I didn't have any butter on hand (and, well, I do typically bake with margarine, anyway), so I went with what you see, here.

As with the ingredients, the recipe is also pretty much what you'd expect. Dry ingredients go in one bowl (or on a sheet of wax paper or parchment, but I used a bowl)...

Ooh... if I zoom in really closely on the flour/baking powder/salt, it almost looks interesting. Almost.

 Shortenings get creamed together:

Can you see, here, why recipes call for scraping down the sides of the bowl? Check out how much of the mixture is actually getting mixed at the moment. What do you think? Maybe 1/3 of it is making contact with the beater in this picture - and it certainly doesn't look fluffy:

Eventually, though, if you scrape down the sides, the mix will turn pretty fluffy after a good beating.

Still, you can see how much is sticking to the sides, and not wanting to play nice with the beater.

 When the sugars go in, well, that's the point where the mix starts to come together.

I won't lie: this is also the point where I really want to start tasting it.

Adding in the eggs make it much softer (you can see that the granular sugar seems to disappear between the last shot and this one).

Once the peanut butter goes in, it gets pretty exciting. It also gets incredibly fragrant, and the whole kitchen starts to smell of peanut-buttery goodness. 

What I really needed at this point was a Hershey bar to dunk into it...

The next steps sound a bit odd, when it says that you need to add the flour mixture in three parts. But, if you think about it, most recipes call for adding the flour one cup at a time and mixing it in - and that's, in essence, what is going on here.

Note to self: Remember to start the mixer on the slowest speed when adding flour, so that you don't fling flour all over the kitchen. (Not that I did that... much...)

Once the flour is all in the bowl and incorporated, it turns into a very soft dough:

This, of course, is the point where I realized one issue: The dough needs to go into the fridge for at least two hours to chill before being portioned out and baked. You'll definitely want to factor that into your prep time, or else you'll be like me and be baking at 9pm.

Into the fridge it goes in an airtight bowl...

After the two hours (and, believe me, it was just barely after those two hours), I got out the dough and started making the cookies. I placed the balls on my cookie sheets based on the recipe's description of spacing, but I do think they could have been a little closer together (for the sake of fewer pans going in and out of the oven).

Here you can see why a floured fork may have done better - I kept getting stuck.

One random thing which I didn't find explanation for: I don't know why the cookies get the fork marking. I mean... it's nifty and all, but I'm not sure why it's done.

In the oven, these do spread (but not much) and they do puff up and get really shiny:

I know what you're saying: "Stop opening the oven door to look at them!" (I may never learn.)

When all was said and done, they came out of the oven a nice golden brown, with a little extra browning on the bottom - kind of picture perfect, if I do say so myself.

So, we know how they look, but how do they taste?

One thing about these, which could probably be adjusted either via baking time or brown-to-white sugar ratio, is that they are a bit cakey, and (from the vantage point of a couple of days after baking) they do get a little dry. Of course, we all know that that just means you need to dunk them - so get your glass of chocolate milk and go for it!

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Have a childhood recipe you've been searching for? A holiday recipe that you want someone else to try before you make it for your relatives? An opinion on whether peanut butter belongs on pancakes? Some random kitchen/cooking question? Let me know and it might show up in one of my blog posts!