Peanut Butter Cookies.

This post is dedicated to Alice who is as Mabs would say a babe as she edits my essays. I made these to reward myself this afternoon after handing in 3000 words on newsprint in the 1640s fascinating or not as the case maybe. I am atrocious at making cookies as mine always spread to far and are never chewy so I thought I would start my quest for reliable cookies recipes with these. I must say that mine did not look as perfect as The Cultural dish's ones but they recipe worked perfectly and they tasted delicious.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon salt
100g butter, unsalted
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup sugar-1 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup salted, dry roasted peanuts.

Preheat oven to 180C or the second runners with a cold shelf in the roasting oven of the aga. Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the peanut butter until fully incorporated. Mix in the eggs one at a time and then add the vanilla. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients a little at a time until fully combined. Once the batter is well combined, stir in the peanuts.

Roll the dough into ping pong ball sized rounds about an 1 inch to 1.5 inches across. Press each cookie dough ball down with a fork to create a crisscross design. If the fork sticks to the dough you can dip it in cold water before pressing it down onto the dough, this works really well. I did not get a very defined criss cross pattern as it was broken up by the peanuts next time I would chop the nuts to the same size as the pieces in the peanut butter.

Bake until the cookies puff up and the edges are slightly browned (9-11) minutes, and make sure to rotate the pan halfway through. Be aware that the cookies will not look fully baked when done, so do not overcook them.