The Truth About Peanut Butter Cookies' Classic Crosshatch Pattern - Tasting Table (2024)

FAQs

Why do peanut butter cookies have a crosshatch? ›

So it looks like that there are utilitarian reasons for the cross-hatching—to allow for even cooking—but it might have been passed along for nearly a hundred years for primarily aesthetic reasons, where the cross-hatching is more to identify the cookies as peanut butter ones, rather than to cook them well.

These early recipes do not explain why the advice is given to use a fork, though. The reason is that peanut butter cookie dough is dense, and unpressed, each cookie will not cook evenly. Using a fork to press the dough is a convenience of tool; bakers can also use a cookie shovel (spatula).

At first, peanut butter cookies were made with ground peanuts instead of peanut butter. George Washington Carver, father of peanuts, published 105 recipes for peanuts that had the first peanut cookies. Then it was discovered that peanut butter could substitute for all or some of the shortening in a recipe.

PEANUT BUTTER – For best results, use classic creamy peanut butter like Jif or Skippy. I tested these with natural peanut butter as well and it didn't make a huge difference, but there can be a lot of variability in natural nut butters.

That's why some of our cookies look the same but have two different names. Whether the package says Peanut Butter Patties® or Tagalongs®, or Samoas® or Caramel deLites®, the cookies are similarly delicious.

Use more granulated sugar than brown sugar.

When making chocolate chip cookies, I always prefer to use more brown sugar than white sugar because that ratio produces a softer cookie. With all of the peanut butter in this cookie dough, however, too much brown sugar made the cookies so soft that they fell apart.

Refrigerating the dough will give it more structure so the cookies spread less and hold their fork marks through baking. Cooling the dough also ensures that all of the ingredients are the same temperature: they'll bake more evenly and the flavors will meld beautifully. Heat oven to 375°F.

Why are my peanut butter cookies falling apart? The main reason for dry, crumbly cookies is overbaking. Every oven is slightly different so check the cookies a few minutes before the recommended baking time is up.

If you're wanting to use natural (no sugar added) peanut butter, the cookies will be less sweet and they will likely spread out more. Using natural peanut butter will change the structure and texture of the cookies. Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour.

Do not over bake. Peanut butter cookies should be soft and moist, not dry and crumbly. Keep an eye on your oven and remove the cookies when the tops are cracked and puffy. They should still look pale in color.

Why are there lines on peanut butter cookies? ›

Why Do You Put Fork Lines in Peanut Butter Cookies? Our Test Kitchen experts say the fork lines are there to help peanut butter cookies cook more evenly.

Peanut butter cookie dough is stiff and will not spread out while baking (the way chocolate chip cookie dough does). Using the long tines of a fork and pressing down on the dough ball twice , one vertically and one horizontally, flattens the dough evenly and leaves attractive marks.

The most common mistake with peanut butter cookies is using the wrong type of peanut butter. The BEST peanut butter for today's cookies is a processed creamy peanut butter, preferably Jif or Skippy.

But this peanut butter also scores higher when it comes to the nutrients that it provides. Most notably, Jif provides 17 milligrams of bone-building calcium, while SKIPPY does not have any. On the other hand, SKIPPY contains less saturated fat and still contains ample amounts of nutrients like protein.

Jif was the leading peanut butter brand in the United States in 2017 by a wide margin. The brand controlled over 30 percent of the market in that year, triple that of Skippy, the next largest brand.

Our Test Kitchen experts say the fork lines are there to help peanut butter cookies cook more evenly. Peanut butter cookies tend to be a bit more dense, so if you left them in ball form, they may remain thick and compact while baking, unlikely to spread out the way chocolate chip cookies do.

Light colored cookies with dark speckles typically indicates that the cookies are underbaked. You can stick the stone back in the oven for another few minutes and they should finish baking. So how do you know when to bake longer than the recipe calls for? It helps if you have a thermometer in your oven.

Certain cookies — Sugar Cookies, Snickerdoodles, Classic Peanut Butter Cookies — need to be flattened a bit before they bake, lest they end up emerging from the oven looking like ping-pong balls rather than typical flat, round cookies.