A Fresh Take on Familiar Flavors: Pan-Banging Peanut Butter Cookies

When I think about peanut butter cookies, a very specific image comes to mind: a thick, tan cookie with a cross hatch pattern on top. Sarah Kieffer has a peanut butter cookie recipe in her cookbook 100 Cookies that fits this description (I haven't tried the recipe yet, but there's a photo in the cookbook). She also includes a recipe for a pan-banging peanut butter cookie that doesn't look anything like the traditional version. And the cookies include a surprising ingredient -- almond flour, which Kieffer says help the cookies spread and ripple.

To make the batter, you beat softened butter with sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy; add creamy peanut butter, egg, water, and vanilla; and incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, almond flour, baking soda, and salt). Chocolate is listed as an optional ingredient and I used Callebaut 2815 callets. I portioned out the dough immediately with a #20 scoop (getting 17 cookies from a batch), and baked the cookies on pans lined with aluminum foil, dull side up. I banged the pans every couple of minutes during the last half of the baking time to set a series of ripples at the edge of the cookies.

Visually, these were practically indistinguishable from Kieffer's pan-banging chocolate chip cookies, but I think I like these better. They were so good. They were impossibly thin (see photo below) and yet had an incredibly chewy center. They were delicious chilled or at room temperature, but my preference is to eat pan-banging cookies cold, when they are chewier. There is a relatively small amount of chocolate in these (only two ounces per batch), and I think it's just enough to add a nice pop of flavor without overshadowing the peanut butter. I couldn't taste the almond flour at all. This is one of my favorite pan-banging cookies so far.

I like peanut butter cookies and have made and eaten my share over the years, but this version seemed completely new and fresh, even though the flavors were mainstream and so familiar. I plan to make these cookies again and again.

Recipe: "[Pan-Banging] Peanut Butter Cookies" from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer.