Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies
Ingredients:
| unsalted butter |
4 Tbl. |
soft |
| white sugar |
½ cup |
|
| brown sugar |
½ cup |
|
| peanut butter |
1 cup |
creamy or chunky, it’s your call (I like Adam’s brand) |
| whole egg |
1 |
at room temperature |
| unbleached all-purpose flour |
1¼ cups |
|
| Kosher salt |
¼ teaspoon |
|
| baking powder |
1 tablespoon |
|
| jam or jelly |
|
whatever you like |
Procedure:
- Cream together butter and sugars until mixture is light and fluffy.
- Beat in peanut butter until uniformly combined.
- Beat in egg.
- Stir in dry ingredients and mix until dough comes together. Dough will likely be a bit crumbly at the bottom of the bowl; just knead a few times to mix it in.
- Wrap dough in plastic and chill at least thirty minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350ºF.
- Divide dough into ½ ounce pieces and roll into spheres.
- Place balls on baking sheet (greased, or lined with parchment or a Silpat) and smush to form discs about ¼” tall.
- Using your finger, a chopstick, or some other similarly shaped item, press a divot in the dough large enough to accommodate about ¼ teaspoon jam or jelly.
- Spoon preserves into the dough (I use a heaped ¼ teaspoon).
- Sprinkle white sugar around the edge of the cookie, if you’d like a crispier finish.
- Bake in preheated oven for 8 – 12 minutes, or until edges are firm and golden.
© Janine Eckhart. Except where noted, natch.
Becca
When I make the thumbprint and fill it with jam, the little crater flattens during baking and becomes less…craterish.
Any suggestions on how to maintain the crater-full-of-jam during baking?
Janine
Two things come to mind:
1: make the craters deeper. Maybe this is too obvious.
B: chill before baking. Roll the dough into balls and then chill them for, say, twenty minutes. Then poke, fill, and bake.