Why it pays off being married to a true scientist

this is all that is left this morning......after I ate 5 or so for breakfast, that is

Whereas I would have said something like, "just trust that Fanny Farmer to make a good peanut butter cookie," over the last month someone else in the house got a bee in his bonnet when it came to making a better cookie. And after much research, experimentation, and note taking, (with my willing sampling and evaluation), I believe that it's safe to say that he's finally reached perfection.

Okay, he is reticent to declare perfection after "only four measley attempts," he's demanding to take over this post in order to add a few clarifications before he's willing to make public his new recipe. Take it away Cookie Maker:

Actually it is only three measley attempts to recreate some peanut butter cookies I made last year for Mother's Day. Basically last Mother's Day I made a recipe which was an amalgam of multiple peanut butter cookie recipes. The cookies turned out with a very rich shortbread texture. Since I hadn't really documented the combination I ran three experiments in an attempt to find a peanut butter cookie J would love as much as the first batch.

Experiment 1. Joy of Cooking p. 831. This produced a stand up melt-in your mouth chewy PB cookie.

Experiment 2. Cooks Illustrated's "The New Best Recipe" minus peanuts in the food processor. Basically I was being lazy since I was cooking with 3 little helpers so I skipped the food processor step. This produced a batch which wasn't as "melt in your mouthy" to quote Jennette, but this probably needs to be repeated with the exact recipe for a fair judgement.

Experiment 3. Joy of Cooking p. 831 minus vegetable oil & increased PB to 1 1/3 C. This produced the shortbread texture that Jennette remembered so fondly from Mother's Day 2007. So, here's the recipe I used.

Preheat oven to 350°F (I used convection because I love having all the cookies going simultaneously, I can't bear to cook cookies without it.)

Whisk together thoroughly

2.5 C flour

1.25 t baking powder

0.5 t baking soda

0.25 t salt

Beat on medium speed until well blended and fluffy

1.33 C Peanut butter

12 T (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1/3 C powdered sugar

1C packed light brown sugar

Add and beat until well combined:

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2.5 t vanilla

Stir in the flour mixture. Let the dough stand for 5' to firm. Roll into balls, drop on cookie sheet and use a fork to make the standard PB cookie pattern. Bake 9-12' until brown at the edges (rotate sheet halfway through if you don't have convection). Let the cookies firm before transferring to wire rack to cool. Due to their shortbread texture you need to treat them gently or they will fall apart on you.

Personally I still have at least 2 or 3 more experiments before I can feel comfortable with declaring victory. I would like to repeat Experiment 3, but with 1 1/4 to 1 1/3 C of crunchy peanut butter because I think it will taste better. Then maybe a Cooks Illustrated with the food processor ground peanut dust, and maybe even the more traditional shortening based Fanny Farmer/RS cookbook that most of us grew up with.

So that's where we are so far. We'll keep you posted on any further developments.