peanut butter cookies

April 04 2009 by Kristin at The Kitchen Sink in Dessert,Recipe » 21 comments

A newish restaurant in our neighborhood offers a dessert that consists of a hefty helping of chocolate sabayon, topped with flaky salt, and a couple homemade nutter-butter cookies. It has single-handedly turned us into regulars. Okay, fine, the duck fat fries help too. But, in the end, it’s the nutter-butters that have me a little concerned Kevin might actually try to move into the restaurant. To avoid this fate, I set out to make my own peanut butter cookies. I was looking for an old-fashioned kind of recipe: a cookie with some chew, studded with finely chopped peanuts and cross-hatched.

In a happy turn of events, the recipe delivered on the old-fashioned front, but it was wholesome too. Coming from 101 Cookbooks, I expected no less. The recipe calls for a simple collection of natural ingredients: peanut butter, whole wheat pastry flour, sea salt, maple syrup, vanilla extract and olive oil (yes, you read that right—olive oil; more on the olive oil, later). These ingredients come to together in a matter of minutes (without a mixer, even!) and then the fun begins.

Scoop out little ping-pong-ball-sized bits of dough, roll them into balls and then press the tines of a fork down into the cookie—once to flatten the dough and a second time to create a criss-cross pattern. Sprinkle with raw sugar or flaky salt and bake. Easy as that.

And they are so good. Wholesome good. Salty good. Old-timey crosshatch good. They’re-so-small-I-can-totally-eat-six-at-once good. Best of all, I think they’ll ensure I won’t go roommate-less as long as I keep a supply on hand.

Heidi Swanson’s Peanut Butter Cookies recipe is here at 101 Cookbooks. [Recipe Note: I made an accidental alteration to the recipe the first time around---I forgot the olive oil. Yes, I forgot one of the seven ingredients, which raises all sorts of red flags about whether you should be taking baking advice from me, but the upshot is this: they still worked. In fact, the dough was a little more firm, making it easier to cross-hatch the cookies. The next time, I made sure to add the olive oil and I liked those too, though the olive oil flavor really came through. So if you're looking for a more traditional peanut butter cookie, you might try omitting or reducing the olive oil. Or, it might just happen by accident.]

21 comments so far. »
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Half Assed Kitchen says on April 04 2009 at 8:04 am:

I miss peanut butter cookies. My son has a life threatening peanut allergies. I wonder how these would taste made with sunflower seed butter? Hmmm.
Kristin at The Kitchen Sink says on April 04 2009 at 9:07 am:

Half Assed Kitchen: I remember comments on 101 Cookbooks noting that almond butter work well, so I’m guessing sunflower seed butter would work too. If you try it, let us know!
ashley (sweet & natural) says on April 04 2009 at 9:17 am:

I LOVE peanut butter cookies and I actually used Heidi’s recipe as a base to make almond butter cookies a few weeks ago! They were really really good – sweetandnatural.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/maple-almond-butter-cookies/.
Whitney Merritt says on April 04 2009 at 9:50 am:

I love the cross hatch on PB cookies. These look great. You have made me want to try yet another place in Chicago…Publican…Bristol…man
MommyAmy says on April 04 2009 at 1:16 pm:

Those look GOOD! Love me some peanut butter cookies….
Jen Schall @ My Kitchen Addiction says on April 04 2009 at 1:42 pm:

These look delicious! They remind me of the peanut butter cookies my great grandmother used to make.
holler says on April 04 2009 at 2:37 pm:

They look great! I really do like the criss-cross pattern. I bet they were really addictive
Chocolate and Toast says on April 04 2009 at 7:37 pm:

You had me at Nutter Butter. May I please move into that restaurant? Or, your house, which appears to be stocked with equally tempting treats?
codfish says on April 05 2009 at 6:59 am:

Whole wheat flour and peanut butter is a match made in cookie heaven, in my opinion. Really love the photos, Kristin. : )
Heidi says on April 05 2009 at 7:42 pm:

They look great Kristin! The next time I make them I’ll scale back the olive oil a bit – because, quite frankly, your cross-hatches totally look better than mine. Your photos are lovely. I’m glad you liked them. -h
Monica h says on April 05 2009 at 8:52 pm:

Bake or Break just made peanut butter cookies too. Now I’m going to crave them!
Tami Lyn says on April 05 2009 at 10:38 pm:

The hubs love peanut butter cookies too. It has been awhile since I baked any, maybe it is time to check out a new recipe?
maggie (p&c) says on April 06 2009 at 4:52 am:

Yum! These sound great. I just may make them for a party!
Tabitha (From Single to Married) says on April 06 2009 at 9:25 am:

oh my. Peanut butter cookies always have been and always will be a favorite of mine, especially when they’re soft and full of peanut butter chips. But these look really good too and I like that you can use olive oil as well. Very nice!
Elizabeth says on April 07 2009 at 3:51 pm:

Yummy!! I’ll have to pass that restaurant on to my dad, who lives in Chicago
Erica says on April 08 2009 at 4:34 pm:

Apparently Hot Doug’s on California serves duck fat fries, too! I’ll have to go to The Bristol soon.. it sounds great.
Megan says on April 10 2009 at 7:57 am:

These look delicious! And that restaurant sounds like one I might like to move to!
carrie says on April 18 2009 at 10:25 pm:

This is my new favorite cookie! My husband and I made them tonight and they were amazing….
James says on May 04 2009 at 8:12 pm:

The pictures of those cookies really brought back memories of my mother making cookies. Besides being small that look just like she use to make.
ChiCitiGirl says on November 09 2009 at 11:05 am:

I was just at The Bristol Saturday and cannot get their Nutter Butter/chocolate sabayon combo off my mind! I’m going to try to replicate…even the choc. dipping sauce. Thanks for posting!
christie says on May 08 2010 at 7:41 pm:

weird… i’ve made the 101 cookbooks version many time and haven’t felt that the olive oil flavour is present. perhaps it’s because i use salted peanut butter, and add salt. i guess salt is supposed to neutralize the flavour of olive oil.