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Peanut Butter Cut Out Cookies

Servings 4 -5 dozen cookies, depending upon the size of your cookie cutters

Ingredients

For the Cookies:

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 2 cups firmly packed light or dark brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour see note to insure you're measuring this correctly
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt

For the Icing:

  • 3 cups confectioner's sugar
  • Water or milk
  • Food coloring
  • 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

  1. In a large bowl, cream butter and peanut butter until fluffy, about 2 minutes.
  2. With mixer on low, add in sugar, eggs and vanilla until well combined.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
  4. Add flour mixture to peanut butter mixture and stir until combined. (I used the lowest setting of my stand mixer for this, but it can be done by hand)
  5. Place plastic wrap directly on top of the dough in the bowl and chill for 2 hours.
  6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  7. Roll dough out on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes, flouring your cookie cutter between cuts.
  8. Place cut out cookies onto a greased cookie sheet or on a sheet lined with a silpat or parchment.
  9. Bake about 8-10 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned and set. Time will vary widely based on your oven and the size of your cookies.
  10. Cool on cookie sheets for a few minutes until set, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
  11. Mix the confectioner's sugar with enough water or milk to create your preferred spreading consistency. I generally use water for this icing. Color, as desired, with food coloring.
  12. Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave at 15 second intervals, stirring at each interval until chocolate is smooth and glossy. I sometimes add 1/2 teaspoon or so of shortening to loosen it up a bit.
  13. Transfer the melted chocolate to a zippered plastic bag and cut the corner tip off, or use a piping bag.
  14. Decorate cookies as desired.

Recipe Notes

*If you use salted butter, reduce salt to 1/2 tsp.

*My cookie cutters ranged from about 2 1/2" to 3 1/2". This recipe yielded about 45 of the smaller size and 13 of the larger size. If you use the coffee can lid, I would estimate you'd yield about 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

*Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature. We've also frozen them, and while the decorations don't fare as well from a visual standpoint, the cookies still taste delicious.

*Update 7-17-16-There's a lot of flour in this recipe so please be careful to measure it correctly. Too much flour will result in a dry dough. I use the spoon and sweep method which leaves me with a cup of flour that weighs about 4.25 ounces. The spoon and sweep method starts with fluffing the flour to loosen it up. Then lightly spoon the flour into your measuring cup until it's overfull. Use a butter knife to scrape across the top to level the flour.

Adapted from The Plain Dealer, article by Mary Krohme

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