Peanut Butter Cookies

This recipe has been around for ages, I'm sure you've heard of it. It's been billed as "World's Best Peanut Butter Cookie". The ingredients are: peanut butter, egg, sugar, no flour. The cookies taste to me, and although the texture is much crisper, sort of like the inside of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I really want to dunk the bottoms in chocolate, and if I had any left, I would. This recipe is from the cookbook I've started cooking my way through, "The 150 Best American Recipes". The original recipe did not call for salt, but I added 1/2 tsp. as suggested by the note in the cookbook. I made mini-versions of these last night to dunk in the chocolate fondue. Delicious. My friend made four large cookies from this dough and used it as a base for killer "Tin Roof Sundaes"--Peanut butter cookie, vanilla ice-cream, hot fudge sauce, salted peanuts, whipped cream. Delicious. You don't need to do anything special with them though, these cookies are delicious, just as they are.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two cookie sheets or line with parchment paper. With an electric mixer beat peanut butter and sugar until well combined. Lightly beat the egg and then add into peanut butter-sugar mixture along with the baking soda and optional salt. Roll approximate teaspoonsful of dough into balls and place on prepared cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Flatten the balls with two presses of a fork, making the traditional peanut butter cookie crosshatch pattern (See the first picture) or flatten the balls with the heel of your hand and press a whole roasted salted peanut in the middle-in the style of a Chinese Almond Cookie (see the second picture). Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until puffed and a pale golden color, about 10 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes and then remove to wire rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container for up to 5 days. Makes about 4 dozen smallish cookies.

The perils of food photography!