Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookies

While Pia’s Peanut Butter Cookies are a staple in our household, I am always looking to amp up existing recipes (like you guys didn’t notice!) Since Pia asked to make cookies today, we decided to make peanut butter- but in a whole new way.

I played with this recipe and made what may be an “Ultimate” Peanut butter Cookie. I changed the recipe so that the peanut butter ratio is much higher. I also used only brown sugar to add a chewier more caramely flavor. And then the crowning jewel was what inspired the recipe in the first place- Honey Roasted Peanuts. We had a can left in the pantry from the Easter Crack last month.

I can’t believe that a brand new can of honey roasted peanuts could have possibly survived in there. Perhaps the fact that it was still sealed contributed to the fact that I did not sniff them out earlier.

I L-O-V-E honey roasted peanuts. They remind me of long awaited airplane trips when I was little, and baseball games with my dad. They remind me of cocktail nut mixes on my grandparents’ coffee table, where I would seek them out like little gems with my chubby little fingers. Very nostalgic.

I added a healthy dose to these cookies, so that there would be crunchy mouthfuls of sweet and salty in the middle of the crispy, chewy peanut butter goodness.

Enough said? Good. Don’t forget your glass of milk.

Ultimate Peanut Butter Cookies, makes 18 large cookies
½ cup butter
½ cup Crisco
1 ¼ cups peanut butter
1 ½ cups packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups flour
¾ tap baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups honey roasted peanuts

Super fine caster or white sugar for sprinkling.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the sheet pans with silpats or parchment
Cream together the butter and Crisco until creamy.

Add the peanut butter and combine well until creamy and uniform.

Add the sugar and cream until fluffy.

Add the eggs and vanilla and beat together.

In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients together.

Add them to the mixing bowl and combine to forma dough.

Add the peanuts and mix until just combined.

Scoop the dough in large mounds onto the sheet pans.

Six cookies should fit on each pan.

Criss cross them with a fork.

Sprinkle them with sugar on the top.

Bake the cookies 11-12 minutes or until golden around the edges. (About 14 if you like them crispy all the way through).

Let them cool on the sheet pan for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Enjoy!