By Early December in Tulsa. Brayden is sixty-two weeks old. Harper’s baby-shower is January 7 — Aunt Linda is hosting it at her house in Sapulpa, with the family-and-Harper-friends mix that a small family-baby-shower typically includes. I have been asked to provide the small dessert table for the shower (Aunt Linda would normally bake everything herself but has been pulled into more pre-arrival logistics with Harper than usual). The dessert table is the kind of low-pressure family-favor catering that I have been doing for the Carltons and the cousins for years.
The chewy peanut butter cookies are Aunt Linda’s recipe — soft drop cookies with the criss-cross fork pattern on top, made with creamy peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, baking soda, flour. The cookie is the simple-five-ingredient classic. The chewy texture comes from a slight underbake (ten minutes instead of twelve) and from the cookies being pulled from the pan still soft and allowed to finish setting on a wire rack.
Aunt Linda wants the cookies for the shower because they are her mother’s recipe — my great-grandmother Carlton (whose corn pie recipe I made in April). The cookies will be on the dessert table next to a vanilla cake, some sugar cookies decorated with pink-and-blue baby-feet, a small fruit tart, and a tray of cream-cheese-mints. The cookies are the heritage element. The other items are the showpieces.
Sunday I made a test batch of three dozen. Two dozen went into the freezer for the shower. One dozen went into the apartment’s cookie tin. Dustin had three with his evening coffee. The cookies will travel down to Mama’s in the December mail-pack and be transported to Aunt Linda’s January 6.
Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 24 cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar (for rolling)
Instructions
- Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Mix the dough. In a large bowl, beat together the peanut butter, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla extract until smooth and well combined, about 2 minutes.
- Add dry ingredients. Stir in the baking soda, salt, and flour until a soft dough forms. The dough will be slightly sticky — that’s what gives these their chew.
- Roll and coat. Scoop the dough into 1-inch balls (about 1 tablespoon each). Roll each ball in the granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.
- Press gently. Use a fork to press a crosshatch pattern into each cookie, flattening slightly to about 1/2-inch thickness.
- Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the centers still look slightly underdone. Do not overbake — they firm up as they cool.
- Cool. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. They’ll be delicate when hot but perfectly chewy once cooled.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 118 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 85mg