If there’s one cookbook on baking that should be in your library it’s “Midwest Made,” a collection of classic recipes attributed to the Midwestern food culture described as “Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland” by Shauna Sever.
I’ve made over 10 recipes in the book from pound cakes, pies, bar cookies and the one featured here, peanut butter cookies, which are the best I’ve ever had.
I reread the recipe several times because the cookie dough had no flour whatsoever. Instead it called for a few tablespoons of cornstarch and only four tablespoons of melted butter.
After I was sure that there wasn’t, a mistake in the recipe I carried on. It’s all peanut butter based, with 2 cups of creamy peanut butter; the author recommends Skippy (I used Jif) saying that more rarefied, natural peanut butters won’t work as well.
The stiff dough is made easily enough in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. Its few ingredients include the cornstarch, vanilla extract, sugar, melted butter and 2 eggs (“refrigerator cold”). Because you don’t have to wait for butter to soften or room temperature eggs, the dough is quickly assembled.
Once it’s all mixed you take out about ¼ cup of dough, roll into a ball and then roll in sugar. Placed on baking sheets, the dough is then pressed down using an old-fashioned potato masher, which produces that little nobs that decorate the cookies.
Use this type of potato masher to get the distinctive knobs on the cookies
The cookie is soft and creamy, though after a day or two in an airtight container it will be crispier.
For the cookies it will be easier to measure the peanut butter by scooping it out of the jar and put directly into the mixing bowl that you’ve affixed onto your scale to measure out 500 grams of peanut butter. It’s far easier to do than stuffing it into a cup measure only to have to scrape it out into the bowl.
Other recipes I’ve tried are the chocolate chip potato chip shortbread (really incredible), Iced Lemony Bundt Cake, Chocolate Marble Bundt Cake, Aunt Phyllis’s Crusty Butter Pound Cake, The Only Banana Bread You’ll Ever Make, Chocolate-Espresso Revel Bars, Jammy Winter Fruit and Browned butter Bars and (The Original) Mrs. Braun’s Oatmeal Cookies.
Sever’s recipe for all butter pie dough is classic and many of the other cakes and pies in the lineup that I plan to make are all tempting sweet treats. These are big recipes, big cookies, big cakes as the book title suggests.
The recipes are fairly well written, though sometimes the directions were a little vague or confusing. Read each recipe carefully and several times before making.
Some of the recipe were standouts for several reasons. The revel bars were overly sweet even for my insatiable sweet tooth. The pound cake is a great pound cake—buttery and crunchy topped–and the marble Bundt cake requires some skill in getting the marbling just right.
Here is the recipe for peanut butter cookies that I’ve adapted here. They are truly spectacular.
Measure all your dry ingredients on a scale with gram readings.
Ingredients
- 2 cups creamy peanut butter (500 grams)
- 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar firmly packed or 280 grams
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 large eggs, refrigerator cold
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- About 1/2 cup granulated sugar
Instructions
- Position the oven racks to the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees. Line two half-sheet baking pans with parchment.
- Put the bowl from a stand mixer on a scale and add the peanut butter to measure 500 grams. Add the sugar, melted butter and salt. Put the bowl back on the stand mixer and using the paddle attachment, beat on medium speed until thoroughly incorporated and creamy.
- Add the vanilla extract. Mix until blended. Add the eggs and mix until blended.
- Add the cornstarch and baking soda and stir on low speed until thoroughly mixed.
- Using a standard ice-cream scoop, measure out dough about 1/4 cup and shape into balls. Add remaining 1/2 cup sugar to a small bowl and coat the dough balls in the sugar.
- Place two inches apart on the baking sheets.
- Use an old-school grid-style potato masher and flatten each ball into 1/2-inch thick disks. Sprinkle tops with sugar.
- Bake the cookies for a total time of 12 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time. The cookies will seem slightly underdone and slightly browned around the edges.
- Remove the pans to cooling racks and let cool completely before transferring to an air-tight cookie tin. Prepare the sheet pan in the same way and continue to bake the remaining dough prepared as described above.
