I haven’t been doing much in the way of recipes on ‘Pining’ over the last year, so I’ve decided to start up a regular Foodie Friday, to try to encourage myself. I’m kicking it off with a simple but very more-ish peanut butter cookie recipe, very popular with kids. It makes about 24 cookies.

Ingredients:

115g/4oz/half cup of butter, diced
125g/4 1/2 oz/ three quarter cup of soft light brown sugar
1 egg
5ml/1 tsp. vanilla extract
225g/8oz/1 cup crunchy peanut butter
115g/4 oz/1 cup plain (all purpose) flour
2.5ml/ half tsp. bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
pinch of salt

1. In a large bowl beat together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

2. In another bowl, mix the egg and vanilla extract, then gradually beat into the butter mixture.

3. Stir in the peanut butter and blend thoroughly.

4. Sift the flour, bicarb and salt into the mixture, stir until the mixture forms a soft dough. Chill it for around 30 minutes until it firms up.

5. Preheat the oven to 180 C/ 350F/ Gas mark 4. Lightly grease two baking sheets.

6. Roll the mixture into walnut sized balls. Place on the baking sheets and flatten using the back of a fork until the rounds are roughly 6 cm/ 2 1/2 inches in diameter, making a criss-cross pattern.

7. Bake for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Apparently these cookies made their first appearance at the 1904 St Louis, Missouri World Fair. This is one that I don’t even have a postcard from but if you’re interested you can see images of it here.