Peanut Butter Cut-Out Cookies

Domestic Goddess's Note:

These are a nice change from the traditional butter sugar cookie. Peanut Butter Lovers will enjoy these. You can find this recipe in the 2003 Country Woman Christmas Cookbook, as well as the Taste of Home's 2004 Treasury of Christmas Recipes Cookbook.

• Total Time: 2 hrs 18 mins
• Prep Time: 2 hrs 10 mins
• Cook Time: 8 mins

Ingredients:

Yield: 54 cookies

• ½ cup butter , softened
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup brown sugar , firmly packed
• 2 large eggs
• 1⁄3; cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• vanilla frosting
• assorted colored crystal sugar
• candy sprinkles

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, peanut butter and sugars.
2. Beat in the eggs, milk and vanilla.
3. Combine the flour, baking powder & baking soda; add to creamed mixture and mix well.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or until easy to handle.
5. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness.
6. Cut with 2-inch to 4-inch cookie cutters.
7. Place 2-inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
8. Bake at 375° for 7-9 minutes, or until firm, and edges are golden brown.
9. Cool for 1 minute, before removing from pans to wire rack to cool completely.
10. Frost and decorate as desired.
11. Note: This recipe states to bake the cookies in a 375° degree oven, but I prefer to bake them in 350° oven.

Reviews

[hgath]

This recipe would make great drop cookies, like the standard peanut butter cookies. However, as is, this recipe does not make dough for roll-out cookies! You'll have to add more flour or cut out liquid to make them rollable.

I love making roll-out cookies in fun shapes and decorating them, but had never done so with a peanut butter recipe. I found this recipe and figured it would work perfectly. Not so! I made the dough (more like batter) with no changes to the recipe and it was definitely not rollable. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I put it in the fridge for two hours so it would become workable. After 2 1/2 hours, I attempted to roll it out. No go. Still sticky goo. No way could you cut cookies out of this. I mixed in more flour (about 3/4 cup) and chilled again. After 30 minutes in the freezer, I attempted again. No go. It was firm enough to roll out, but still way to gooey to hold any sort of shape cut out of it. So I added MORE flour (another 3/4 cup), kneaded it in, chilled, and then finally could make passable cut-out cookies from it.

So, if you're willing to a) add 1.5 cups additional flour, b) work very quickly in small batches of dough because it will still get too soft FAST, and c) use only very simple shapes and accept that they still won't look perfect because the dough is so soft, then go for it. Otherwise, I would just drop this stuff in spoonfulls onto your pan and flatten with a fork.

p.s. With all the additional flour, the finished product was pretty dense. Still tasted good, but not ideal.

[Katiecarr]

Very good. I didn't frost them because I ran out of time. They were very good without the frosting.

[melodyjean]

Wonderfully moist, especially for cut-out cookies, with good peanut butter flavor. I substituted Splenda brown sugar. The dough was very tender and needs fairly simple shapes to hold together. This was a healthy change from my usual cut-out dough, more protein and less saturated fat.