Salted Peanut Butter Cookies

If you read my food reviews, you’ll recall a recent post about Ovenly and how sinfully delicious their baked goods are. Especially their salted peanut butter cookies! I was so taken aback with how good these cookies were, that I knew I had to find the recipe and try to recreate them myself. Well I did it! It wasn’t such a hard task, thanks to Ovenly having this recipe in their cookbook. Smitten Kitchen featured the recipe on their website, so I was only a short amount of time away from having these amazing cookies baking in my oven. 

For this recipe to be successful, you need to use a processed peanut butter such as Skippy or Jif. The natural peanut butters are too runny so don’t be tempted to make these cookies more healthy. Just enjoy them for what they are: pure peanut butter heaven. To achieve the shape seen in the photos, you will need to use a cookie scoop. Freezing the dough is mandatory if you want to get the pretty striations on top of the cookies. 

Although these cookies are pretty perfect as they are, I’m a believer that chocolate and peanut butter were always meant to be together. So I couldn’t resist drizzling some dark chocolate (72%) over half of the cookies. Just melt the chocolate over a double boiler, or in the microwave, and spoon it into a zip-lock bag and snip off one of the corners (make it a very tiny snip). Let the chocolate set before storing the cookies. 

Yield: 2 dozen cookies
*recipe adapted from smittenkitchen.com

Ingredients:

1 & 3/4 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 & 3/4 cups smooth peanut butter (such as Skippy 16.3 oz)
Coarse-grained sea salt to finish

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a silicone baking mat. 
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and eggs until mixture is smooth. Whisk in the vanilla extract, then the peanut butter until it’s completely incorporated. No ribbons of peanut butter should be visible. 
3. Chill the dough in its bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes. This will ensure the cookies will hold their shape more, than if you don’t chill. It’s also important for achieving the pretty striations on the top of the cookies. 
4. Scoop the dough into balls using a cookie scoop and place on the prepared pan. To ensure the tallest final shape, place the pan with the cookie dough balls into the freezer for 15 minutes before baking.
5. Once chilled, sprinkle the tops of the balls with sea salt. Place in the oven and bake for 14 to 15 minutes. The edges should look golden. Let the cookies cool completely before handling them, so that the different textures (crisp outside, soft inside) can set up. 
6. Once cool, the cookies can be drizzled with chocolate if you feel so inclined. Allow chocolate to harden before storing. 

Notes:

The cookie scoop I used was the OXO Good Grips Medium Cookie Scoop, which holds approximately 1.5 tablespoons of dough.  The dough can be made in advance and can be refrigerated for up to 2 days. It can also be frozen. If freezing, scoop your balls of dough first and then freeze them. Make sure to use processed, not natural peanut butter. This will ensure the right consistency and greatly affects the overall outcome of the cookies. The Skippy 16.3 ounce jar is approximately 1 & 3/4 cups so this will save you some measuring.