Cookie of the Day: Atha’s Peanut Butter Cookies from ‘Duff Bakes’

Every week, Yahoo Food spotlights a cookbook that stands out from all the rest. The week’s cookbook is Duff Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home by Duff Goldman and Sara Gonzales (William Morrow Cookbooks). For 10 seasons, Goldman starred on Food Network’s ‘Ace of Cakes.” He’s also the founder of Baltimore’s Charm City Cakes and Los Angeles’ Charm City Cakes West. Gonzales is his trusted head baker and kitchen manager at Charm City Cakes West. Read more about Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week here.

Photograph by Caren Alpert

By Duff Goldman and Sara Gonzales

Atha’s Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes about 16 cookies

Atha was my grandmother’s housekeeper, and she helped raise my mom and then my brother and me when we were little in Wichita, Kansas. Atha could bake. If I have to say what pushed me into baking at an early age, it was the joy that Atha brought us by making her peanut butter cookies every time we visited my grandma. She would make a whole tin of them, and they’d be gone in a day and she’d have to make more. That’s how we kept them fresh. Here’s my adaptation of her recipe. I can’t make them as good as hers, but I’ve been told that mine are amazing. Maybe it’s just eating a cookie made by somebody who loves you that makes them taste so good. —Duff

2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
2 cups sugar, plus more for rolling
2 tablespoons molasses
1¼ cups crunchy peanut butter
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of kosher salt
2½ cups all-purpose flour

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugar, and molasses until fluffy. Add the peanut butter, vanilla, and eggs and mix until well combined.

Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix really well. Add the flour and mix gently until you have a sticky ball. Taste it. Amiright???

Cover and chill in the fridge for 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375˚F and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper but no cooking spray. Fill a small saucer with sugar.

Roll the dough into balls just smaller than a golf ball. Drop each ball into the sugar, then place it on the baking sheet, sugar-side down.

Using a fork, press the cookie down, making a criss-cross pattern, but leave the cookies kind of thick. You want them gooey in the middle.

Bake for 10 minutes. Don’t let them get too brown. Let them cool right on the baking sheet so the bottoms get a bit more done than the tops and they hold the cookie together. Boom, done. Enjoy with milk!

Reprinted with permission from Duff Bakes: Think and Bake Like a Pro at Home by Duff Goldman and Sara Gonzales (William Morrow Cookbooks).

More cookie recipes to love:

Christina Tosi’s Citrus Cookies

Gooey Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies from Kale & Caramel

Laura’s Gingerbread People from ‘Classic Cookies with Modern Twists”