E-Z Peanut Butter Cookies

from Bakewise by Shirley O. Corriher

Have you read Bakewise? This is my new favorite cookbook! Shirley Corriher's new bible of baking science explains all of the ins and outs of baking ingredients and how to use them to your advantage to vastly improve your own results. Gorgeous pictures and recipes that benefit from her years of experience fill the pages and best of all, it's written in Shirley's soft, Southern down home voice - I can hear the words coming out of her mouth when I'm reading the pages.

So I've been baking and reading like crazy and learning all kinds of things that I never knew - like that you can make amazing peanut butter cookies without adding any flour. Who knew? I have a dozen peanut butter cookies recipes and I don't love any of them. Some of them spread out too much in the oven, some get hard too quickly and the rest are just uninspiring. Well, that's all changed now. Shirley has brightened my cookie jar with my new favorite peanut butter cookie recipe. 

The weather has been chilly and just right for an afternoon of cookie making. Thumbing through the pages, I came across Shirley's recipe for E-Z Delicious Peanut Butter Cookies. While the oven preheated, I dutifully read through the paragraphs on flourless cookies so I could understand this brave new world, and got to mixing. The recipe only has 3 ingredients in it! Peanut butter, brown sugar and an egg. Unbelievable!  I was done with the whole project in less than an hour and could get down to the really important part - knocking back three or four cookies with a warm cup of tea. Ahhhhh.... perfect afternoon.     

E-Z Delicious Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup (258 grams) extra crunchy peanut butter
3/4 cup (162 grams) light brown sugar
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray.

Stir together the peanut butter, brown sugar and egg.

Use a teaspoon to scoop dough into heaping mounds on the baking sheet at least 1 inch apart. Grease the bottom of a for with baking spray and press down on cookies to make a criss cross pattern.

Bake one sheet at a time until the edges start to color, 9 to 10 minutes. Do not overcook. Cool 2 minutes on the pan and remove to a cooling rack.

Note: Shirley's recipe called for 1/2 cup of English toffee baking chips to be stirred in after the egg, but I didn't have any, so I added 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract instead.

Comments

[zerrin]

Yum! It seems easy and sounds scrumptious. I must have a look for that book, Bakewise. I hope I can find it here, in Turkey. Thanks for sharing.

[Dave Jones]

They look supremely cheerful and yummy.

[aecummingsII]

My EZ cookies failed miserably! What went wrong? My oven is calibrated, I used Jif extra crunchy peanut butter, Domino light brown sugar, a large egg I bought yesterday and Heath English toffee bits. The baked cookie is greasy,(which I was afraid of) and with an almost tacky,candy/fudgey crumb. Your picture is so perfect! I stirred by hand, didn't use paddle, packed the sugar...my bad? I'll try again but your input would be most appreciated!!