Lockdown Peanut Butter Cookies

Flour is pretty hard to come by right now, so if you don't any in the cupboard buy some pancake mix instead as it is mainly flour anyway! I used Betty Crocker Pancake mix as it was the best value verse quantity. It also already contains baking powder so no need to add more. If you like things sweeter and particularly if you are not using pancake mix then you could use 2 cups of white or brown sugar. Leave the butter out of the fridge to soften before you make the cookies. This does make quite a large batch of cookies - so you can freeze some of the dough for later, simply form into balls first and thaw before baking.


Ingredients:

1 box of pancake mix or 2 3/4 cups self raising flour (add 1 tsp of baking powder if using standard flour).

1 cup and ¼ - almost a whole jar of peanut butter, smooth or crunchy depending on your taste. No need to use expensive peanut butter, the cheap stuff works best. You can also use the whole jar, if you are so inclined, it wont change the dough much.

½ tsp baking soda (or 1 ½ if you are using standard flour instead of pancake mix)  

1 cup white sugar (or brown)

½ a cup of brown sugar (or white)

1 cup of soft butter 

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

¼ cup chopped peanuts (optional but will make them more peanutty which is delicious)

Method:

Cream butter and sugar – add eggs beat for a few minutes. Add the vanilla essence, then the peanut butter.

Sift dry ingredients. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients gradually to combine into a stiff sticky cookie dough. lastly, mix in the chopped peanuts (if using). Cover the dough and rest in the fridge for at least an hour (overnight is also fine). The Cookies are too hard to roll if you don’t refrigerate the dough and will spread too thin when baking.

Preheat the oven to 180c.

Roll dough into balls, flatten the ball slightly in your hand and push further with a fork on the tray. 

Do a test run of a few cookies first to suss out your timing – how you like them and how much they spread. Bake for 9 – 11mins. It's important to let them cool down before touching them as they will be very soft right out of the oven and seem like they are underdone - they will firm up a lot once cooled. 

For a chewier cookie bake for around 9 minutes or 11 minutes for more crispy result. 

On a roll and what to try something else? Josh Emett shares great tips via his Instagram and Chelsea Winter's Beer Loaf is really good!