Peanut Butter Cookies: Why the Criss-Cross? (2024)

FAQs

Peanut Butter Cookies: Why the Criss-Cross? ›

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.

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.

Pressing a fork into these peanut butter cookies prior to baking helps flatten the cookies slightly, promoting oven spread. The fork marks also encourage the cookies to bake more evenly and brown evenly.

Basic reason..the dough is more dense than most cookie doughs, and the pressing with the fork tines helps the dough bake evenly. Secondarily, its pattern makes it easier to tell them apart from other cookies with similar appearance.

Peanut butter cookies have been popular since the early 1900s. In fact, in 1913 the wife of the 28th US President, Woodrow Wilson, published a list of her cookie recipes, which generously included a recipe for Peanut Cookies that, of course, used peanut butter.

The peanut butter cookie was invented in the 1910's, when George Washington Carver of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute published a peanut cookbook in an effort to promote the crop.

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.

Some varieties of peanut butter separate easily — even after you've mixed it up — leaving a layer of oil at the top of the jar when you're ready to dig in. Luckily, a simple storage hack can help you enjoy a more evenly incorporated nut butter that's easy to smear on practically any of your favorite foods.

If your peanut butter cookies are hard, you likely cooked them for too long. They should not be baked for more than 8 or 9 minutes.

Chilling the dough for a few hours will help the peanut butter cookies maintain their shape, and not overly spread when cooked. Dip the fork in sugar. To help keep the fork from sticking when you make a cross-hatch pattern on the cookies, dip the tines in a little granulated sugar between cookies.

Why are there lines on peanut butter cookies? ›

That's because the first recipe books to include peanut butter cookies recommended using forks to flatten the dough. Eventually more people started recommended a criss-cross pattern over parallel lines, because it flattened the cookie more uniformly.

Energy Boosting: The combination of protein, fiber, and complex carbohydrates in oatmeal peanut butter cookies can provide a sustained energy release, preventing the energy crashes associated with consuming refined sugars.

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).

If all you have on hand is foil and you don't like thin and crispy cookies, try chilling your dough before baking to prevent excess spreading — or just skip the lining altogether and bake them on an ungreased sheet pan. A nonstick silicone cookie mat made the best cookies of all the tests I tried.

Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies satisfy the peanut butter lovers in your family. Made with real peanut butter, these crunchy cookies have twice the creamy filling. These sandwich cookies come in a peanut shape, making snacking fun.

Why did my cookies spread so much? One of the most common causes of cookie spread is that the fat is too warm. Make sure to chill your dough thoroughly if the recipe calls for it. If you're forming dough balls and the dough is too sticky to work with, this is a sign that your dough may be too warm.

Why are my cookies dry and crumbly? This is most likely a classic case of using too much flour. It's crucial to properly measure the flour in this recipe, as even 1 extra tablespoon of flour can completely change the structure of the cookies. You also might have over baked them!