After all the cakes in the past week, this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie choice, which was made by Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine, was a welcome change around these parts.

No cake, no buckle, no upside down fruit tart. Just a simple, straight forward cookie recipe.

Cookies!

My cookie jar has been empty for a while now. So when I started to make these Tom and the little man were ecstatic to say the least. Asking if they were ready about a trillion times during the 20 minutes it took me to put them together.

And in times like this you realized that you really never fully know your other half. Because after two years together, it was news to me that peanut butter cookies is Tom’s Holy Grail. His words, not mine folks. He has some serious Peanut Butter cookie love going there.

But, back to the cookies. (I love saying cookies! Or in this case typing the word cookies!)

Yes, I bizarre that way, I need to show you my “freak” once in while.

These are pretty easy to do and were chocked-full of peanut overload. Not only in the use of peanut butter but also chopped salted peanuts in the batter, which in my mind made them even better. Oh and if you want to really take them up a notch, you can add pieces of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips as Dorie suggested in the “playing around” section. After reading my fellow bakers praises on this simple addition, I’m going to follow that route as well the next time around.

I did not change the recipe at all, but I did do an extra step that it does not call for, which is a trick that I learn by reading the gazillion cooking magazines through the years that graze my mailbox. After having them all line up in my baking pans and ready for the oven, I usually place them in my freezer for about 5 to 10 minutes to chill the batter a bit. This trick makes them cook crispier and help them bake more even, particularly if they have a lot of butter in them. And with 2 full stick of butter this trick helps keep the “spreading” factor to a minimum while baking on the cookie sheet.

So, enough about me, lets get you baking cookies!

Peanut Butter Crisscrosses
From Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From my home to yours

Ingredients:

2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
Pinch of grated nutmeg
1 cup / 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth, I used smooth)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
1½ cups chopped salted peanuts
About ½ cup sugar, for rolling

Preparation:

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and nutmeg.

Working with a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed for a minute or two, until smooth and creamy. Add the peanut butter and beat for another minute. Add the sugars and beat for 3 minutes more. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl and, on low speed, add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they just disappear. Mix in the chopped peanuts. You’ll have a soft, pliable (mush-able, actually) dough.

Pour the ½ cup of sugar into a small bowl. Working with a level tablespoonful of dough for each cookie, roll the dough between your palms into balls and drop the balls, a couple at a time, into the sugar. Roll the balls around in the sugar to coat them, and then place on the baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between them. Dip the tines of a fork in sugar and press the tines against each ball first in one direction and then in a perpendicular direction – you should have a flattened round of dough with crisscross indentations.

My tip: Place in the freezer for a 5-10 minutes chill time before baking.

Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point. When done, the cookies will be lightly colored and still a little soft. Let the cookies sit on the sheets for a minute before transferring them to cooling racks with a wide metal spatula. Cool to room temperature.

Repeat with the remaining dough, making sure to cool the baking sheets between batches.

Verdicts:

They are gone – totally gone, no more cookies in the cookie jar in the house. That pretty much tells you the kind of hit this was around these parts.

Check out the other TWD bakers to see the different takes to this recipe, or go clicking happy and buy the book here. And don’t forget to mosey over to our host, Jasmine’s site to give her a high five for choosing these stupendous cookies.