Peanut Butter Cookies

A few weeks ago, I decided it was finally time to organize the pantry. Food was just stacked all over the place, and it became pretty darn difficult to figure out what we already had when it came time for grocery shopping. The shelf I spent the most time on was the baking shelf. Y’all…I can’t even tell y’all how many extra boxes and bags of baking supplies were in there, and sadly some of them were expired. 🙁 What a waste. Within that, I also discovered that I had two unopened jars of peanut butter, and one of them was expiring in a month. So, of course I needed to use it up ASAP. Lesson learned….I’m cleaning the pantry more often from now on!

I’m a big fan of cookies, but for some reason, I hardly ever make peanut butter cookies. I like them, but I’m so used to making cookies involving chocolate or just good ol’ sugar cookies. To me, these are sort of the forgotten cookie, and there’s really no reason for that, because peanut butter cookies are delish!

Peanut Butter Cookies
Source: King Arthur Flour

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two baking sheets lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix together the shortening, sugars, egg, vanilla and peanut butter, until the mixture is smooth.
3. Scrape down the bowl and add the flour, baking soda and salt to the wet mixture, beating slowly until the mixture is just combined. This is a dry dough, so it could take a while to come together. If the dough is too crumbly, add a little water at a time until the dough is no longer crumbly.
4. Using a tablespoon scoop, drop the cookie dough onto your baking sheets, making sure to leave 2 inches between each cookie. Take a fork and flatten the cookie to a 1/2 inch thickness, making a cross-hatch type of design on them.
5. Bake the cookies for 12-16 minutes, until they just start to brown around the edges of the cookies. The tops will not brown at this point. Cool the cookies on a rack and enjoy!