Peanut-Butter Crisscrosses

A week ago, we had some folks in town from an overseas office, and there was a large brainstorming meeting. Normally, when we have a visit from one of our team members from abroad, we have a group pizza lunch followed by bakery-bought cupcakes. This time around, the guys wanted something else, so I decided to make Peanut-Butter Crisscrosses.

I haven't tried this recipe in a very long time. When it says that it makes almost five dozen cookies, it wasn't kidding, so I'm glad that I decided to bring them into the office for the rest of the staff to eat as well. In baking these again, I also discovered some interesting things about the science of cookie-making.

From the point of putting them into the 350 degree oven, to ten minutes later when they came out, they didn't seem to get a lot larger or darken very much, which was not as how I'd remembered them. In doing some research on line*, I found out that the fact that I'd had to use a cup of cake flour, which is lower in gluten, might have had an impact on how they came out in the end, as I should have added more flour to make up for the difference. I also think that the fact that I did use butter (instead of the shortening on the card) and organic peanut butter (we always used a regular national brand), might have had an impact on the final result. I'd also had to add an extra quarter of a cup of regular white sugar to make up for the fact that I didn't have enough light brown sugar available, which added to the crispiness.

The end result turned out golden-colored and more crispy than chewy. They were light as well, too, with more of a peanut-butter essence flavor than an intense peanut taste. Having not tried these in a long while, I could only draw upon a distance memory of how they should feel in the mouth and on the palate. Everyone in my office seemed to like them just fine.

Buon appetito!

Kitchen Witch Tip:

*There's lots of articles and research on the Internet about baking and the impact of using different types of ingredients. For these cookies, I consulted a few, including these two: one on flour and one on various cookie-baking techniques.