The results are in

Since the quarantine started, Alton Brown has been entertaining his fans with two kinds of YouTube videos: longer Quarantine Quitchen episodes where AB and his wife Elizabeth (and sometimes their rescue dog Scabigail) cook a meal together; and shorter Pantry Raid episodes where AB whips something up real quick using whatever is around the kitchen. AB made his chewy peanut butter cookies in one of the first pantry raids. I usually run screaming from anything involving peanut butter, but Brad and I decided to try these after I found a big container of Skippy® creamy peanut butter (FUEL the FUN!®) hiding in the back of a cupboard from last Christmas when Mom made her usual peanut butter blossom cookies.

Much to my amazement, I found these cookies not only palatable but actually quite enjoyable. In fact, I liked them enough that I decided to set up a head-to-head taste test against the internet's most famous peanut butter cookies—Ovenly's Salted Peanut Butter Cookies. When Deb Perelman called those cookies "perfect" on Smitten Kitchen, her post received 550 comments, many of them raves. So I baked up a batch of Ovenly's cookies and we tried them both. I passed out slips of paper to all five tasters, and no one said anything until the results were read. Everyone liked both cookies, but, surprisingly, it was a unanimous decision in favor of AB's. Brad went so far as to pronounce them "superior in every way." Things just aren't usually that definitive in life. So AB it is going forward.

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I tried sprinkling some Maldon sea salt on some of the cookies. It didn't add much.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from Alton Brown via his website and YouTube

Time: 27 minutes

AB uses 120 grams each of brown and white sugar, but these are sweet enough for me with only 100 grams of each, especially with the sugar that's already in the peanut butter.

268 grams (1 cup) creamy peanut butter, such as Jif or Skippy
100 grams (½ cup) light brown sugar (see note)
100 grams (½ cup) granulated white sugar
1 large egg (~57 grams in the shell)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon (5 grams) vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon kosher salt

    1. Place racks in the center of the oven; heat to 350 degrees. Line two 13-by-18-inch half-sheet baking pans with parchment paper (don’t use silicone mats—the cookies will spread too much).
    2. Using a silicone spatula or a wooden spoon, mix the peanut butter and sugars together in a large bowl until well combined. Add the egg, baking soda, vanilla, and salt, and beat again until well combined and smooth.
    3. Using a #40 (1½ tablespoon) disher (that’s the Oxo medium cookie scoop you use to make Katherine Redford’s), scoop the dough onto the sheet pans. You should have 16 cookies, so 8 per pan.
    4. Using the business end of a dinner fork, flatten the cookies by first pressing down with the tines, then sliding back (i.e., don’t lift the fork up). Make a cross-hatch pattern by doing the same thing at a 90° angle to the first marks. If you’re having trouble with this step, you can try dipping the tines in cold water before pressing down.
    5. Bake until the cookies are lightly browned and look dry in any cracks, about 10 to 11 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back after 5 minutes.
    6. Transfer the sheet pans to wire racks and cool for 3 minutes. Carefully remove the cookies from the pans and cool for at least 10 more minutes on the racks before serving. Makes 16 cookies.