Salty-Sweet Peanut Butter Sandies
Published December 2, 2014
Soo-Jeong Kang/The New York Times
- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
1 cup/228 grams/2 sticks unsalted butter, preferably cultured, softened at room temperature
¾ cup/150 grams granulated sugar
¾ cup (packed)/170 grams light brown sugar
1 heaping teaspoon/6 grams kosher salt
2 cups/510 grams unsweetened peanut butter, creamy or chunky
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 cups/250 grams all-purpose flour
Flaky sea salt and coarse sugar for sprinkling (or use kosher salt and granulated sugar)
Nutritional analysis per serving
15 grams carbs; 19 milligrams cholesterol; 167 calories; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 11 grams fat; 1 gram fiber; 78 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein; 9 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Heat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick liners. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until smooth and fluffy, at least 3 minutes. Add the peanut butter and eggs, and mix. Add the flour and salt and mix just until well combined, with no white flour showing.
- Step 2
Using a small cookie scoop (about 2 teaspoons capacity), scoop dough onto prepared pans. The tops will be rounded but craggy. The cookies will not spread much or change shape when they bake, so they can be placed quite close together, but leave room for air circulation so they can brown.
- Step 3
In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons sugar with 1 tablespoon salt. Sprinkle each cookie lightly with sugar-salt mixture, getting it into the crags and crannies. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until cookies are set and golden-brown. Carefully lift or slide off baking sheets and cool on racks. Store in layers separated by parchment paper, in airtight containers.
Private Notes
Comments
One of my loves is peanut butter and chocolate so I could not resist adding mini-chocolate chips. Oh, my! This is the cookie you create in secret when no one is home and then hide the plastic container in the freezer under containers of frozen butternut squash soup and bags of frozen peas so they are safe and secure from anyone finding them.
Try using turbinado sugar in this instead of the granulated sugar, and cutting down each sugar by 2T...I did, and it made these even closer to the City Bakery gems I remember. I have made this with Smucker's Natural (which someone left at the house) and with Koeze Cream-Nut (which I order by the case from Zingerman's). There is no wrong peanut butter for this recipe. A keeper.
Made this recipe exactly, including the cultured butter and rounded shape. Frankly, I'm a little tired of the flat cross-hatch thing going on. At 12 minutes, the result was not a crispy cookie, but a firm rich shortbread with a buttery, dense center that melts in your mouth. Next day I shared withs friends. One respected taster bit into her cookie mid conversation. Eyes widened, she said "Oh my!" Indeed. Don't know if my waistline can handle another batch anytime soon.
Aside from using kerrygold unsalted butter instead of cultured butter, I made these as directed. I used Kirkland organic natural peanut butter. 2-tsp scoop, baked 12 mins, used a scale to measure grams. I’m not sure why but the resulting cookies weren’t sandy at all; they were a bit crisp around the edges after baking and soft in the middle, but not sandy. But the next day they were just soft. Still tasty but not at all the texture I was hoping for. I froze half the balls, will bake longer.
Too sweet and crumbly, IMO. Maybe I did something wrong.
These are exactly as good as the other comments say they are. I used a whole 250g block of Trader Joe's cultured butter and they turned out fine. I think I need a smaller cookie scoop! BUT SO YUMMY. I made them for a work potluck and absolutely everyone raved about how yummy they were.