Peanut Butter Cowboy Cookies

2 C (10 oz/283 g) all-purpose flour
1 t (4 g) baking powder
½ t (2 g) baking soda
1 t (6 g) salt
1 C (2 sticks/224 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 C (7 oz/198 g) light brown sugar
1 C (7 oz/198 g) granulated sugar
⅔ C (172 g) smooth peanut butter
2 t (10 ml) vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 C (6 ½ oz/180 g) quick cooking oats
1 C (5 oz/130 g) cocktail peanuts, roughly chopped
1 C (2 ¾ oz/85 g) sweetened flaked coconut
12 oz (341 g) milk chocolate chips

In medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together on medium speed butter, sugars, peanut butter and vanilla. Beat for 3 minutes until smooth, fluffy and lighter in color. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl as necessary. Add dry ingredients gradually while beating on low speed, mixing well between each addition. Repeat until all dry ingredients have been added. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl as necessary. After dry ingredients have been added, increase mixer speed to medium and beat for 1 minute. Use spatula to mix in oats, peanuts, chocolate chips and coconut by hand. Batter will be stiff.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, position oven rack in middle position and heat to 350° F (177° C). Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicon baking mat. Set aside.

Remove dough from refrigerator. With hands, form dough into ball and divide in half. Continued dividing each piece until you have 32 equal pieces. Roll each piece in to ball and place on prepared pan least 3-inches apart. Press centers to flatten slightly, approximately ¾-inch, for even baking. I recommend baking one cookie sheet at a time. It takes a little longer but cookies bake much more evenly than doing two at a time.

Bake for 15 to 16 minutes until lightly golden. Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to cooling rack to cool completely.

Makes: 32 (2 ½-inch) cookies

2 Apr 18 – Possible Art In the Burbs craft show (AIB) sample cookie. Combined dry ingredients in medium glass Pyrex bowl. Bowl size was correct and everything mixed well. Softened butter in proofer to 66 degrees and creamed ingredients for 3 mins on medium speed.  Everything creamed nicely becoming smooth, light and fluffy and a light beige color. Used Danish whisk to incorporate add-ins. As usual, it worked well distributing things. Batter was somewhat stiff.  Refrigerated batter in mixer bowl for 40 to 45 mins. After refrigerating, dough was still soft, not what I was expecting.  Rather than use the original recipe recommendation for portioning, I used my repeated divide in half method until I got the recommend number of cookies, which in this case was 32. Because dough was relatively soft, it divided easily and formed 1 to 1 ½ balls nicely. I used a new procedure, only baking batches of 6 cookies at a time, to determine correct baking time. As a result I did my first batch on the small Williams-Sonoma cookie sheet covered with parchment paper rather than large cookie sheet and Silpat. I baked the first batch for 17 mins and let cool completely before testing.  Cookies slightly browned around edges but spread/flatten somewhat. Susan and both agreed they were slightly over done.  I baked the second batch again on the small pan and parchment paper for 16 mins.  These did not spread as much, approx 3-inch across, and were browned about the same as the first batch. We decided this batch was proper baked. I did one final batch on large W-S cookie sheet covered with Silpat for 16 mins. Unfortunately these came out over brown on the bottom and unevenly baked. Not sure why! Cookies were a little crunchy on the edge but chewy in the middle. Good texture and they had a nice peanut butter flavor in addition to the other add-ins.