Butter and Sugar

These peanut butter cookies were a labor of love.  I like peanut butter and jelly or savory peanut noodles, but peanut butter in candy or baked goods is just not my thing…at all.  Well, J has been asking me to make peanut butter cookies for awhile.   So, I gave in and made a quick batch.  I doubled the amount of peanut butter in the original recipe to prevent cookies from being too dry and to add more peanut flavor.  I used unsweetened natural chunky peanut butter and they were still plenty sweet.  I took half a taste and let me tell you these are hardcore peanut butter cookies.  The flavor is intense and probably best paired with a cold glass of milk. They would probably be good drizzled with melted chocolate for those that like Peanut Butter Cups, but J wanted to keep them simple.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from SouthernFoodAbout.com

1 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup salted butter

1 cup chunky unsweetened peanut butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

Sift together flour and baking powder; set aside. Cream butter, peanut butter, and sugars; beat in vanilla and egg. Stir in flour mixture, blending well. Shape mixture into 3/4-inch balls; place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Flatten each cookie with the tines of a fork.  Cookies will not spread much so they can be placed fairly close together.
Bake peanut butter cookies at 375° for about 10 to 12 minutes.