Growing up as a kid, I wasn’t a fan of the peanut butter cookie. Which is a bit odd for a girl who grew up asking for two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in her lunchbox every day. I’ve always loved peanut butter, but I’ve only recently began to enjoy the simple nuances of the peanut butter cookie. Actually, my love for this cookie started to grow when I realized how absolutely easy these cookies are to make, and that I almost always have the ingredients for them in my pantry. Got a sweet tooth but no sweets in the house? Then this cookie is a fantastic go to.
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| Got to use a fancy mixer...ooooo! |
Interesting Facts about Peanut Butter (because knowledge is power):
· It’s a law in the United States that any product labeled “peanut butter” must contain at least 90% peanuts.
· It takes about 540 peanuts to make a 12 ounce jar of peanut butter.
· There is a name for the fear of having peanut butter stick to the roof of your mouth – arachibutyrophobia!
· In 1890, a St. Louis doctor developed the idea of packaging peanut paste for people with bad teeth. Peanut paste was sold for six cents per pound. This was the earliest form of peanut butter.
· If you remember Mr. Ed the talking horse (from TV), they gave the horse peanut butter to make his mouth move as if he was talking.
· One-half of all edible peanuts produced in the United States are used to make peanut butter and peanut spreads.
· Unopened peanut butter is good for up to two years. Opened peanut butter is good for 6 months. And stays fresher if kept in the refrigerator.
· Jif operates the world’s largest peanut butter plant, producing 250,000 jars every day!
· 1908: Krema Products Company in Columbus, Ohio, began selling peanut butter and is the oldest peanut butter company still in operation today.
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| Didn't want to use real natural peanut butter, because I figure they didn't have it back in 1962. |
Want more history? Keep reading. Bored already? Skip to the next paragraph. (But then we’ll all know that you hate learning and nobody wants to hate learning, right?) Peanuts have been added to cookies for hundreds of years, so it was only natural that after the invention of peanut butter, it would become a popular add-in as well. But the early peanut butter cookies did not have the famous fork marks. The titled “crisscross” marks were first mentioned in the Schenectady Gazette on July 1, 1932. The Peanut Butter Cookies recipe instructed readers to “Shape (the dough) into balls and after placing them on the cookie sheet, press each one down with a fork, first one way and then the other, so they look like squares on waffles.” Now that’s a pretty good description. Everyone knows what a waffle looks like. Then, Pillsbury popularized the use of this fork trick in their 1933 edition of Pillsbury's Balanced Recipes. From there on, crisscrosses became the peanut butter cookie’s calling card.
<--- Hit Play to see what Annalie thinks of flour...see her "jiggle jiggle" as my mom calls it.
I’m over at my mom’s house when I decide to bake up these gems. Which is good for two reasons: 1, my mom has an awesome kitchen and mixer. 2, my mom is there to help me wrangle my little cookie monster while I cook. J The recipe has an asterisk stating that “for richer cookies, use 2 cups of flour (vs the called for 3 cups).” Um, yeah. Of course I want richer cookies! That’s like saying, “oh, if you would rather have more awesome cookies, do this instead.” Who would choose NOT to use less flour if the promise was richer cookies? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “nah thanks, I’m rich enough.”
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| Grandma Walter and Annalie |
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| before they went in the oven |
Another good thing about baking up cookies at my mom’s: having plenty of people to send them home with. So thank you to my mom, my sister Beth, and my brother Kyle for taking these off my hands! Hope you enjoyed them!
Cookie Grade: A = traditional no-fuss peanut butter cookies, yummmm
What I was jammin' to: girl talk with Annalie, my mom, and Grandma Walter. 4 generations!
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