Beth's Best Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe- Entertaining with Beth (2024)

FAQs

Why do they put fork marks in peanut butter cookies? ›

Basic reason..the dough is more dense than most cookie doughs, and the pressing with the fork tines helps the dough bake evenly. Secondarily, its pattern makes it easier to tell them apart from other cookies with similar appearance.

Peanut Butter Cookie Mix Hacks

Flavor Twist: After creating the dough according to the peanut butter cookie mix instructions, portion the dough into balls then roll in a tasty topping like poppy seeds, sesame seeds or sprinkles, or go for a 4:1 ratio of sugar and dry spice, like ground cinnamon or nutmeg.

So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.

Cookie tips & tricks:

For softer peanut butter cookies, don't flatten them with the fork. They will be puffier and softer. For crispier peanut butter cookies, use a fork to flatten the dough balls. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes before rolling into balls for a chewier peanut butter cookie.

If you're wanting to use natural (no sugar added) peanut butter, the cookies will be less sweet and they will likely spread out more. Using natural peanut butter will change the structure and texture of the cookies. Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour.

Peanut butter: Creamy peanut butter is ideal for this recipe because crunchy peanut butter creates an overly crumbly cookie. You can use processed peanut butter such as Jif or Skippy, or natural-style peanut butter.

Chilling the dough for a few hours will help the peanut butter cookies maintain their shape, and not overly spread when cooked. Dip the fork in sugar. To help keep the fork from sticking when you make a cross-hatch pattern on the cookies, dip the tines in a little granulated sugar between cookies.

You can further augment the gustatory potential of the peanut butter by using both vanilla extract and almond extract in your dough—just a splash of the latter is enough to boost your cookies' nuttiness (while remaining subtle enough that no one will cotton onto the presence of drupe essence in your legume dessert).

"When your dough is refrigerated, the butter hardens. So when you bake them, they spread less and hold their shape better," adds Epperson. "Which means a better likelihood of a soft, chewy cookie in the center." Chilling the dough creates fluffier cookies with better consistency.

Why are my peanut butter cookies always hard? ›

Why did my peanut butter cookies turn out hard? This is most likely to happen from over-baking your cookies. Make sure to take them out of the oven when they're still a bit soft in the middles, that way they can finish cooking on their cookie sheets outside the oven.

What about substituting oil for butter? Depending on the type of oil, it can add complex flavor and welcome moisture to your baked goods. A good rule of thumb is to replace about 3/4 of the butter in a recipe with olive, canola, or vegetable oil. (If the recipe calls for 1 cup butter, use ¾ cup oil.)

For a delicious peanut butter flavor, add peanut butter or peanut butter cups to your basic cookie mix. Smooth peanut butter adds flavor, while crunchy peanut butter adds to the overall texture as well. Simply cream peanut butter with margarine or butter before following the recipe instructions.

Sugar cookie dough mix provides many dessert options. You can enjoy your sugar cookies plain, frost them or mix in an ingredient such as peanut butter, nuts or chocolate chips to change the flavor and texture.

There are several ways to make cookies chewier. One is to use melted butter instead of room temperature butter, or replace half the butter in the recipe with shortening. You can add an extra egg yolk, and you can replace some or all of the granulated sugar in the recipe with brown sugar.

Chilling the dough for a few hours will help the peanut butter cookies maintain their shape, and not overly spread when cooked. Dip the fork in sugar. To help keep the fork from sticking when you make a cross-hatch pattern on the cookies, dip the tines in a little granulated sugar between cookies.

You can use a fork or a dough docker to prick small holes all over the surface of the dough. By venting the steam, docking keeps the dough from billowing or heaving as it bakes. It's an important step for crisp cookies or that are baked all in a single sheet and not cut up until they come out of the oven.

If you don't flatten the cookies first, then the fork does double duty – it performs both functions. One very subtle result of creating the pattern is that the little tips of dough bake up crisper than the rest of the cookie, giving you both a bit of additional texture and deeper taste where the dough is more baked.

Remove the wrap if you've used it, then use a fork to prick ("dock") the dough all over; this allows any steam to escape, and prevents the shortbread from bubbling as it bakes. Prick the dough in a random pattern, or create a pretty design.