When Peanut Butter and Co., a cute little Greenwich Village cafe known for its incredible number of variations on the humble peanut butter sandwich, began distributing their peanut butters nationwide, we were thrilled. We love peanut butter.
When it came to their book The Peanut Butter & Co. Cookbook: Recipes from the World's Nuttiest Sandwich Shop
though, we were a bit skeptical. Honestly, why bother with a cookbook when their stuff tastes so good just eaten directly from the jar? Yes, it's true--we're not above eating a spoonful of "Mighty Maple" (delightfully crunchy) or White Chocolate Wonderful (kind of like a white-chocolate Reese's cup, only all smooth and silky) right from their respective peanut butter jars.
though, we were a bit skeptical. Honestly, why bother with a cookbook when their stuff tastes so good just eaten directly from the jar? Yes, it's true--we're not above eating a spoonful of "Mighty Maple" (delightfully crunchy) or White Chocolate Wonderful (kind of like a white-chocolate Reese's cup, only all smooth and silky) right from their respective peanut butter jars.
But somewhere between spoonfuls, a glorious thought occurred: What if it tasted even better baked into something?
And so we consulted the book, and settled on something simple to start: the peanut butter shortbread. While theirs calls for regular peanut butter, we upped the ante by using their Dark Chocolate Dreams variety. These cookies bake for a long time, which allows ample time for the aroma of peanut butter, chocolate, and cookie to permeate the entire house. This is not a bad smell to have permeate your house, by the way. The taste seemed to have three defined layers: upon first bite, one encountered the sandy, slightly salted, buttery bite of the shortbread; then, a moment later, there was the peanut butter; chasing it very closely, a finish of rich, dark chocolatiness. Oh, were they delicious. Here's our adaptation of the recipe:
- 2 cups flour
- 2/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 3/4 cup peanut butter (We used their "Dark Chocolate dreams" variety)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Their recipe says it yields 12 wedges of shortbread, but we did a combination of thinly rolled cookies and simple, small round cookies and got more like 24.
- Prehead the oven to 275. Either grease a 9-inch cake pan (if you want wedges) or just grease a regular cookie pan if you're a rule-breaker, like us.
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour and salt and set aside.
- In a separate large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and vanilla til fluffy. Continue mixing, adding the dry ingredients 1/2 cup at a time, until fully incorporated.
- (a.) If you want classic wedges, at this point press the dough into the prepared cake pan, using a knife to score the surface of the dough into 12 wedge-shaped pieces. Repeatedly press the tips of te tines of a fork around the outer edge of the shortbread, creating four concentric circles of dots. (b.) If you want to go your own way, roll them into little balls and then flatten them slightly (like at the top). We also rolled out a few and tried to use a cookie cutter, but the buttery nature of this dough didn't take to that so well. All the same, we did get a few cute Cuppie-cookies.
- Bake for 75 minutes (since we'd broken a rule, we checked it at 60 minutes and ultimately took them out at 65 minutes or so), or until shortbread is a pale golden color (since ours was brownish from the chocolate, we looked for a slight crispness around the edges). If in wedges, allow to cool for 1 hour before cutting. Store in airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
Cakespy Note: we should add that while the peanut butters are available online at ilovepeanutbutter.com, the shipping can get pricey; you might want to try your local supermarket. We found that they had them at our local gourmet supermarket in Seattle, so we can only assume they're around the rest of the US too!