Peanut Butter Cookies Like My Grandma Used to Make

My grandma Betty used to make some of the worlds BEST peanut butter cookies, and I have never been able to find a recipe I liked as well as I did hers. It was a cookie taste that we spin me back to when I was a wee little girl, sitting in the kitchen with my grandma (although she never sat down)!

Well these cookies aren't hers, but they are now sitting right up there on the top of my list! These are fantastic little guys to snack on (or devour as a meal...). They have a crunchy, sugar crystallized exterior with a inside that is as soft and fluffy as a cake.

Once again, I adopted this recipe from one of my favorite blogs Smitten Kitchen. She has a fantastic cookie line-up. Check it out in her recipe archives!!


Peanut Butter Cookies
adopted by Smitten Kitchen
Makes about 2 dozen
Ingredients
1 1/4c flour
3/4tsp baking soda
1/2tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
1c peanut butter (I always prefer crunchy)
1/2c unsalted butter, softened
3/4c sugar (I used pure cane sugar)
1/2c packed brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temp.
1tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla extract


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 1. Mix flour, soda, powder and salt. 2. Blend butter and peanut butter until fluffy. 3. Add sugars and mix. 4. Mix in egg, milk, and vanilla. 5. Finally mix the flour mixture in with the peanut butter mixture. 6. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of sugar on a small plate and roll the cookies in the sugar to coat before placing onto an non-greased baking sheet. Use a fork to make criss crosses on the top of the cookies (being careful not to press too hard). Pop these bad boys in the oven and wait for 10 mins. to take them out!

Cinnamon&Sugar Biscotti

For my first upload into my "journalBlog" I am starting with a Biscotti. I have always wanted to learn how to make a biscotti and I have heard that they are very easy to make and I feel that they would be easy to modify!

Diving on to Epicurious I found this recipe for Cinnamon & Sugar Biscotti's. They were delightful. I made these tasties last night and I was too busy figuring out how to blog.. (I know I'm in my early twenties and still don't really know how to blog. Sad.)

(Reminder: I am still an amateur food photographer!)

The original Epicurious recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I changed this recipe a bit due to the repeating comments on Epicurious. I cut the sugar to about 3/4ths cups because I thought 1 full cup would be a bit much. Many of the reviews also said to add another egg. So I did!

Over all the recipe was easy to make and worked really well. The texture of the biscotti was a little more moist than biscotti's should be so next time instead of adding an additional whole egg. I might try just adding another egg yolk to see if that helps. This recipe would be an easy one to make sweet or savory! For savory I will try to toss some fresh rosemary and some olive oil (perhaps as the egg substitute!) in the next batch!