Peanut butter cookies are a big hit for holidays

This holiday season I made multiple batches of my famous peanut butter cookies. They never fail to please and fill the belly with that warm, fuzzy feeling. Not super sweet, guests can enjoy eating several cookies. Even Santa enjoyed these cookies once again this year. We left out four large cookies and woke Christmas morning to find nothing but a few crumbs on the cookie platter.

What is really great about this recipe is that I can make the dough in advance and right before guests arrive, I can roll out the balls, flatten with a fork and put a batch in the oven. Have them warm and ready to go by the time our guests come walking through the door. As a result there seems to be a never ending supply of fresh peanut butter cookies.

Here’s the recipe that I’ve developed over the years. It is a popular cookie that will please the crowd any time of year.

Peanut Butter Cookies

½ cup butter (one stick) softened 1 cup peanut butter 1 cut white sugar 1 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking powder ½ tsp. salt 1 ½ tsp. baking soda

Cream butter and sugars. Add peanut butter until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. In another bowl, use a wire whisk to mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Gradually stir flour mixture into the butter and peanut butter. Stir until a smooth dough ball forms. Seal in a container and chill for one hour.

Roll dough into balls. Flatten with a fork.

Bake for 10 minutes at 300 degrees. Cookies will appear underdone when you pull them out of the oven but that is normal. They will continue to bake on the sheet. Remove from cookie sheet after couple minutes. Serve warm or let cool completely. Store in a cookie tin.