We’re back! I meant to post this before we left on vacation, but I ran out of time, even for such a fast and simple recipe as this one.
I first encountered it years ago in Gourmet magazine, where they were called Mom-Mom Fritch’s Peanut Butter Cookies. I tried them and fell in love, instantly. It is the only peanut butter cookie recipe I have used since then. That’s nearly 15 years worth of peanut butter cookies. In the intervening years the internet has discovered and popularized them, providing them with a fame they richly deserve.
You can play around, adding chocolate chunks, crushed malt balls, or chopped peanuts. But the bottom line is that no matter what you do they are the only peanut butter cookie I’ve ever made that really, really tastes like peanuts. Other cookies have a faint peanut aftertaste. These are pure peanut through and through.
The secret to getting the right texture and flavor is to NOT OVERBAKE them. If you do they will be dry and crumbly. They should instead be thin and chewy.
No Flour Peanut Butter Cookies
- 1 cup smooth, all-natural peanut butter, with salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Stir the sugar into the peanut butter. Stir in the egg, then the baking soda and vanilla.
- Scoop the dough out by teaspoonfuls. Roll these into balls and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet.
- Flatten each cookie with the back of a fork, making a cross-hatch pattern in the top.
- Bake for 8 minutes, until puffed, and just starting to brown. Do not overbake them. I’m serious. Do not overbake.
- The cookies will be very soft when you take them out of the oven. Let them sit for a couple of minutes, until they stiffen enough to remove to a cooling rack.
Abby Made Me Do It 