June 22, 2015
I hardly ever make Peanut Butter Cookies. I like them I just don’t make them often. After Pap’s accident we had to help Granny do some major re-arranging to make it possible for Pap’s wheel chair and walker to be able to move freely about the house.
Granny is a real pack rat, but she amazingly let us help her dispose of many many things. As we sorted and cleaned I came across Volume I and II of Recipes, Remedies & Rumors published by the Cades Cove Preservation Association. The Deer Hunter and I had gifted Granny the cookbooks back at Christmas of 2004—I had even signed them. Good thing I did or I would never have even remembered where they came from. Granny twisted my arm and insisted I take both books back. Actually since she was storing them in the bottom of a box at the back of a closet I suggested I take them back and she readily agreed.
When my recent hankering for peanut butter cookies hit I checked both volumes of the cookbooks out to see if they had a recipe. They had several. But I chose Lydia Buchanan Ledbetter’s recipe.
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 1/4 self rising flour
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
Beat shortening and peanut butter until thoroughly mixed.
Add both sugars and mix well.
Add egg; mix well.
In a separate bowl mix flour, soda, salt, and baking powder together.
Add flour to peanut butter sugar mixture and mix well.
Dough will be stiff.
Pinch off a small piece of dough and roll into a small ball. Place balls on an ungreased cookie sheet and mash each ball slight with the tines of a fork. I rolled my dough pieces around in a bowl of sugar before I placed them on the cookie sheet because I like the added crunch of sugar.
You can make a cross hatch pattern with the fork like I did if you want to go to the trouble. Bake cookies in a 425 oven for as long as it takes, the time depends on how your oven cooks and the size of your cookies. My oven took 6 minutes and my cookies were small. It seems peanut butter cookies are easy to burn, at least for me, so keep your eye on them until you figure out how long your oven takes.
You can make the dough ahead and keep it in the fridge for when you need it. The cookies are so good!
—June 22, 2015
Since I first made Lydia’s peanut butter cookies back in 2015 I’ve made them often. I wanted to bake a batch over the weekend but didn’t get it done. I’m aiming to make them this week, hopefully today.
Last night’s video: Roofing Will Make You Old.
Tipper
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I wouldn’t eat them but I have children and grandchildren who certainly would. I wonder how they would freeze after baking.
Yum! I love peanut butter anything. These cookies sound delicious. My mama always made the best chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. It was sooo good. One of my grandsons was up this weekend. It was the first time he was here since Easter, and the first thing he asked me to make was peanut butter/chocolate eggs. He said,
“they don’t have to be decorated for Easter though”. I guess he thought that would make it easier. LOL. They know all they have to do is ask and Grammy will make it!
Thanks for the recipe.
My wife and I made blackberry jelly and jam Saturday. That jelly would go good on some of those cookies. I picked a hand full of berries Sunday to eat. It’s too hot to be out long but there are plenty of them available.
If you like a short cut, I found this recipe from 1979 in one of my mother’s books-
1 cup peanut butter (not crunchy)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all ingredients with spoon. Roll into small balls. Place one inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 15 to 20 minutes.
Do you add any flour to this recipe for peanut butter cookies?
A good peanut butter cookie is a perfect treat, especially if it’s homemade. I think I’ll try my hand at this recipe.
Thanks for your yummy cookie recipe, Tipper
oh yes, I love peanut butter! They sound so good..
Appreciate the recipe.
Morning Tipper. Just having my coffee and reading your post. The PB cookie recipe sounds interesting and I’m chomping at the bit to make them. I’ve never used self rising flour in a cookie recipe, a first for me. I’ll probably reduce the oven temp to 375′, better for me. Some of my earliest cooking memories are of my mom letting me help make the dough balls and her helping me use the fork for the decoration. I thought it was great fun. Nice memories. Thanks for the recipe
Cookies look delicious and usually everyone likes peanut butter cookies:)
Yay for Matt getting 1/2 the shed roof on and how smart to pace your self. Our oldest son put a metal roof on his grandfather’s barn which was as long as a chicken barn. Took him a couple years to get it done cause he did it by himself, and did some damage to his back. It really was a two man job but even 40 yr olds think they are strong enough to do most anything. Have to learn the hard way.
I had planter fasciitis in my 50’s and I know exactly the pain. I could make it through work, cook supper and then if I sat down for a few minutes and stood up – oh my the pain. The doctor tried to hide the needle when he came in the room. I said doctor I’m in so much pain, don’t worry about me seeing the needle just get on with it:) Guess that is what that song Hunker Down means:) It was cortisone that they shoot in and they have to get it right in the place it’s needed but it did the work. He had me doing exercises before I stepped out of bed in the morning. Pull the sheet around the middle of the foot and hold with hand on each side. Push your foot against the sheet back and forth at least 12 times before you stand up. That stretches the tendon that runs in the middle of bottom of your foot. I also was told not to go barefoot, only when taking a bath/shower or of course swimming. I don’t have a lot of fat padding on the bottom of my feet. I said well I’ve got plenty you could transfer from elsewhere but he said it doesn’t work like that:) I don’t have to do the exercises anymore but I sure won’t go barefoot around the house or yard.
My husband loves peanut butter cookies! Thanks for sharing this recipe, Tipper!
Nothing like homemade peanut butter cookies. Especially fresh from the oven.
PB cookies are one of my favorites. I like them hard and crunchy with a medium brown bottom. They don’t last long even though I only eat them if I’m alone or with somebody. There is another cookie my Grandma used to make for us. It is a chocolate oatmeal cookie. Our County Agent had the recipe printed in the newspaper over 60 years ago. They were dubbed “McCreary County Cookies” but I don’t think the recipe was original. The recipe was very simple. I think all there was in it was cocoa powder, sugar, oatmeal, butter and milk. They were drop cookies. Not at all pretty but still good.
I have made many peanut butter cookies over my 60+years of baking, and I enjoy trying new recipes all of the time. My grandson, Nathan, just loves them so when I bake now it’s usually for him. Papaw and I don’t need the extra calories. The oven temperature seems to be high; most recipes call for 375 degrees, but I plan on trying the recipe and will let you know how they turned out. Thanks for the recipe.
I bet the cookies would be good, but making them is beyond my cooking skills. I haven’t watched the video about roofing making you old, but I can say at this time of year in the south roofing will make you very hot-96 degrees today and high humidity causing the heat index to be over 100 degrees.I read in one of Rick Bragg’s stories he had saw the rubber soles on his grandaddy’s boots get soft and begin to melt in the hot Alabama summer time when his granddaddy would be roofing a house.
Ed, I read your last comment yesterday too late to post last night, but found out the DB tractor could have had either a B&S or Continental engine depending on the year and model. My neighbor had many different plows with his. He even built a small trailer with a seat he could sit on and pull behind his. He also had a 3-4 foot sickle bar mower that mounted on the front. After this, I will not write anymore about these tractors.
Randy, Sorry I let the conversation go too far!