Peanut Butter Cookies

When The Man joined a new office right before Christmas I sent a lot of my extra baking in with him. Since then he regularly brings home requests from his workers. The most recent was for peanut butter cookies, which I think was just an excuse to get me to make them since they're his favorites. I don't make them very often because my recipe is a little messy. But the results are worth it.

1/2 cup butter, very soft - this is important, the butter wont mix well with the honey and peanut butter if its not soft enough.

2/3 cup honey

1/2 cup sugar + extra for decoration

1 cup peanut butter

2 eggs

2 1/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and use greased baking sheets for this recipe, or parchment paper.

Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl, and set aside.

Cream the butter and honey together till completely incorporated, add the sugar and mix well. Mix in the peanut butter, scrape the bowl often to make sure the ingredients are completely incorporated. Add the eggs one at a time, continuing to scrape the sides of the bowl completely. Fold in the dry ingredients until completely incorporated, but don't over mix. Chill the dough for a half hour, scoop out 1-1 1/2 inch balls of dough, flatten using the bottom of a glass coated in sugar. Bake for 13-15 minutes, cool on cookie sheet for 3 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. This is where the parchment paper comes in handy, you can just pick up the entire sheet and move it to a wire rack. I get about 3 dozen cookies from this recipe, but it all depends on the size of your cookies.

This is one of those recipes where you really have to make sure all of the wet ingredients are very well mixed before you add the dry, I've been making these cookies for ten years and the first few times I'd end up with big lumps of plain butter or peanut butter or sugar. I like to use a hand held mixer instead of my kitchen aid, because its easier to get to the sides and bottom of the bowl. I use a drinking glass with a star burst pattern on the bottom to press the cookies. It gives them a unique design. I just spray the bottom of the glass with nonstick spray and press it into a bowl of sugar. I usually have to respray it every 4 cookies or so. These were a huge hit at his office, and there were a couple of requests for the recipe, so here it is.