What...is your quest?

I have been charged by Dad with a sacred quest...to seek a perfect, dunkable peanut butter cookie recipe.

Dad's commandments:

• they shall be crispy on the outside, and chewy in the middle
• they shall bend and not snap
• they shall be dry enough to soak up his milk
• they shall not crumble under the weight of his milk
• they shall be sweet enough to avoid the sentence: "it would taste good with some sugar."

This is my third attempt at the perfect, dunkable, peanut butter cookie...and I failed, again.

The Problem: they are apparently too moist in the middle to soak and support my dad's milk. Damn.

I am posting the recipe anyways, because, for anyone who doesn't scrutinize every cookie with the previously mentioned criteria, these cookies are a success. They are crisp on the outside and chewy in the middle—my favourite kind of peanut butter cookie.

Make sure you chill the dough, or your cookies will spread too much. I made the recipe by weight, but I'll include the rough volume measurements. 

Not Dad's Peanut Butter Cookies
(adapted from this Peanut Butter Cookie recipe)
makes about two dozen

Ingredients:

• 120 grams (1/2 cup) butter, softened
• 120 grams (1/2 cup) natural peanut butter
• 80 grams (1/4 cup) honey
• 80 grams (1/4 cup) maple syrup
• 175 grams (1 1/4 cup) spelt flour*
• 5 grams (1/2 Tbs) gluten flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 grams (1/4 tsp) fine sea salt

* I could not find a consistent weight/volume conversion for spelt flour, and I've been searching for a while. I finally tested it myself—it came to about 142 grams/cup, which is the same as many other wheat flours.

Instructions

1. With an electric mixer, combine butter, honey and maple syrup until all lumps are gone. 

2. Add peanut butter and vanilla—mix until smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, sift flour and stir in other dry ingredients.

4. Add dry to wet, and, with a spoon, mix until just combined.

5. Chill the dough for at least an hour, but preferably longer (I made my first batch 6 hours later, and the rest the next day).

6. Preheat oven to 375F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

7. Roll dough into balls and press with a lightly floured fork.

8. Bake 8-9 minutes, or until edges are golden (the centers might look a bit uncooked, but that's ok—they'll firm up once they cool).

In case you're wondering, Dad's favourite dunk cookie, so far, has been the un-jammed Peanut Butter and Jam Thumbprint Cookies, but apparently they tend to fall apart in his milk.

Well, I haven't given up—I have a long list of cookie baking tricks already written out, so expect more peanut butter cookie recipes.