The internet sure has taken the old-timey notion of recipe sharing to a new, hyped-up level. While I still appreciate the intimacy of a hand written recipe card and will cherish my mothers recipe notebook when it gets passed on to me, I must admit I can get caught up in all the buzz when something new hits the webs.
We've recently reported on no-knead bread, NYT chocolate chip cookies, and the latest sensation: the bacon explosion. The internet is surely responsible for the Red Velvet Cake revival. Can cake pops be far behind? A few years back it was a sweet little peanut butter cookie that is made without butter or flour. Read on for my version...
I've been making this peanut butter cookie for ten years, ever since I found it on the Epicurious site where it's called Mom-Mom Fritch's Peanut Butter Cookies. The recipe has accumulated over 200 comments since it appeared in 1999, several of them quite recent.
The original recipe has four ingredients: 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of baking soda. People have revised it by adding vanilla or salt, less sugar, different kinds of sugar, chocolate chips, craisins and fresh peanuts. They've changed the cooking time, the size of the cookie and the oven temperature. As much as I hate to mess with simplicity, I did make some adjustments over the years based on these comments and my own experiments. Here's my latest version.
Sensational Peanut Butter Cookies
18 cookies
1 cup peanut butter (see note)
3/4 cup natural cane sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
additional sugar for rolling
Preheat oven to 375 degrees°F.
Mix all the ingredients up in a bowl. Roll walnut-sized pieces into balls and roll balls in the additional sugar. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and flatten slightly with a fork in a crisscross pattern. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool before removing from baking sheet.
Note: Peanut butter comes in all kinds of configurations and the kind you choose will influence your outcome. Some peanut butters are very sweet, some have been hydrogenated, some have a whole lot more in them than peanuts! Then there is the chunky versus smooth debate. I used a natural chunky version (Safeway brand) for this recipe that wasn't too sweet although it did have added cane sugar in the ingredient list.
Related: Bittman's No-Knead Bread Phenomenon
(Images: Dana Velden)
These look tasty! I wonder if other nut butters would work as well.
view maggie (p/c)'s profile
By the way, Cook's Illustrated revisited the chocolate chip cookie in the most recent issue...
view maggie (p/c)'s profile
oh yeah! other nut butters is a great idea
view pedalpowered's profile
Here is an even easier version, I made them they were delicious, but my kids didn't love them:
1 cup peanut butter, chunky or smooth
1 cup sugar additional for rolling
1 egg
Mix peanut butter, sugar and egg in a bowl. Form into one inch balls and roll in additional sugar. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and use a fork to form cross marks in the cookies. Bake at 375 for ten minutes or until edges are browned but not burned.
view Meredithvp's profile
ooh, it might be worth trying with almond butter and orange zest for something a little fancier....
view thinkingwoman's profile
yum! so simple, but sounds perfect for a gf/cf snack
view Barbara S's profile
almond butter and orange zest!
i swear like 5 years ago i saw martha stewart make orange-almond cookies with a guest chef. i look all over her website all the time and can't find the recipe.
it was basically like this
almond paste
egg whites
powdered sugar
orange juice
orange zest
incredibly tasty. i gave one to my physics prof on valentine's day and it totally made his day.
also, how is almond butter different from almond paste?
view pedalpowered's profile
yum!
view abigailbelle's profile
i think almond butter might have more oil added to it?
view Barbara S's profile
I remember making the Mom-Mom Fritch cookies a few years ago. As I recall, they were delicious, but required great quantities of milk, tea, or other liquid to help wash them down.
view heather77's profile
almond butter and almond paste are completely different. almond paste is like marzipan. it's two kinds of sugar (granulated and a syrup) with a small amount of ground nus and usually tons of almond extract.
view saltyc's profile
It's funny you posted this, because I just made these last night with the same ratio as your original: 1 c peanut butter (I used the super chunky cause thats what bf puts on his sandwiches), 1 c sugar, 1 egg, 1 t baking soda. They came out nice and light, a good change from traditional pb cookies. I think next time I will use brown sugar and maybe even some honey instead of the white sugar it called for, as the texture was a little grainy. I also considered adding a little bit of heat (cayenne powder or a bit of pureed chipotles in adobo?). But overall, great basic recipe.
view marianne215's profile
A few weeks ago, my 6 y.o. granddaughter and I made the three ingredient peanut butter cooky recipe (pb, sugar, egg). I dropped the little blobs of cooky dough, and she flattened them with a buttered glass bottom, which she dipped in sugar for each cooky.
She "flattened" with great enthusiasm, so the cookies were cracker flat and crisp. I think a bit of vanilla would have helped, but everyone thought they were very good.
view SunnyBlue's profile
Funny. This is the exact same recipe posted on Gluten Free Girl a few years ago. http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/2006/10/yum-yum-peanut-butter.html
Is there such a thing as recipe plagiarism?
view edmf's profile
It's also the exact recipe found on the jar of Kraft peanut butter, so I'm thinking it's been around for awhile.
The Kraft recipe doesn't call for any baking soda, and they stay puffed up fine. I usually put some chocolate chips in them. They are so good that I frequently have to toss them, lest I eat the whole batch all at once!
view little_melly's profile
edmf -- it's such a basic recipe that I think it's entirely possible for different people to have come up with the same ratios completely on their own.
view heather77's profile
These were pretty good. I managed to prep, mix and bake them while my bf was cooking dinner. The timer went off while we were eating and he was none the wiser that I was even making cookies. But bake them for the 10 minutes NOT A MINUTE LONGER. I had two batches and one stayed in about a minute longer and they are very crumbly.
view HelloChloe's profile
I LOVE YOU KITCHN!!! My sil is allergic to butter AND flour and I have been playing eith desserts as they will be visiting for a month! I am planning custards like panna cotta but I wished I had something cookish and you have made me very happy!!!!
view luv2cook's profile