Classic Peanut Butter Cookies

This is my favorite cookie. There, I've said it. I couldn't possibly go through a cookie baking marathon without it. It is usually one of my first to bake and I will bake several batches throughout the season. It is also a very flexible cookie lending itself to all kinds of add-ins. . .chocolate, oatmeal, candy, raisins, and more. It makes a great ice cream sandwich or you could make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with them.

As I was arranging a few cookies on a plate to photograph, I started wondering about those criss-cross fork marks. I love them and find them soothing to make, they identify the cookie, and I have never seen them on any other other. But why, and who did it first? There are any number of things that can be used to flatten a cookie. I even found myself fantasizing about the baby's hands but Pritchard Parker said that would be creepy. Besides she's too little; she would grasp rather than press, then she would have peanut butter, raw egg, and sugar on her little hands, which would go straight to the mouth. Maybe next year.

This is the last cookie I'm sending to Susan of Food Blogga for her 3rd annual Christmas Cookie Event. Check out the amazing array of beautiful and unique cookies from all over the world she has posted

Peanut Butter Cookies
The Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup butter, at room temperature
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Cream together the peanut butter, butter, and brown sugar until light and well blended. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.

Roll spoonfuls of dough between your palms to form 2-inch balls, and place them about two inches apart on parchment lined baking sheets. Press each cookie with the tines of a fork to create the criss-cross pattern.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool. This recipe makes about 4 dozen 3-inch cookies.