Peanut Butter Slice and Bakes

If you are looking for a good peanut butter slice and bake recipe, try this one! The dough stays soft enough to slice while cold, and the peanut butter cookies bake up sweet with just the right crumbliness and a classic slice and bake shape. The recipe also happens to be egg-free and vegan if you use a non-dairy milk

Shortening or Butter

You can make these with shortening or butter. For the shortening version, I recommend Spectrum, a trans-fat free shortening originally marketed to health conscious bakers. At one point I thought Crisco was the best, but a few years ago things flip-flopped and now it seems like Spectrum has a cleaner flavor and performs better. Butter works well too. You can use it as-is or brown it to make brown butter peanut butter cookies.

Mixing Method

An interesting thing about this recipe is the mixing method. You make a dry mixture with the flour, sugar and leavening agents, then blend in softened fat and peanut butter until crumbly. You then add corn syrup and milk to form a soft dough. If you make peanut butter cookies often, you could pre-make your own peanut butter cookie mix by mixing everything but the corn syrup and milk. On the other hand, you might as well just make the dough because this kind of slice and bake peanut butter dough is perfect for freezing long-term

Slice and Bake Peanut Butter Flavor Variations

There's no vanilla in the recipe, but feel free to add some. A little cinnamon -- not quite enough to make them spice cookies, but just enough to taste, is a good addition too. And if you want to get experimental you can replace the granulated sugar with other sugars and the corn syrup with honey or maple syrup. Here's a picture of some made with coconut sugar, butter and honey.

Baking in Different Ovens

Do you ever wonder why your cookies are paler or darker than ones in photos? It's often the oven. I thought I'd mention that because I baked part of the batch in my Blue Star oven and part in my Breville. The Blue Star Batch was much paler. I think something is going on with it, but the oven thermometer said 350F. It's just interesting how the same dough can bake in different ovens.

Microwave Peanut Butter Cookies

And while we're on the subject of ovens, you can bake these cookies in the microwave! This recipe is actually from the early '80s when microwave-baking was all the rage. To micro-bake, just slice the cookie dough around a quarter inch thick and microwave at 50% power for 2 to 4 minutes. Mine were done in 2, and I'm guessing with our microwaves being more powerful now than they were in the '80s most cookies will be done in 2. You may have to play with the settings on your microwave a bit. The old recipe also advised spreading peanut butter in the middle to make them peanut butters sandwiches. Is that ever not a good idea?

Notes About the Dough

• Shortening: Measure by weight for best results. Shortening weighs less per cup than butter. If using shortening use 98 grams, butter 114 grams.
• Flour: Measure by weight or aerate well and use a light hand.
• Paddle Attachment of a stand mixer set to low speed works well for mixing the fat with the dry ingredients. If using butter, soften it a bit.
• Peanut Butter: I've been testing with a really oily unsweetened peanut butter, but any type should work.
• Rather than make one long roll, try making two or four. It's easier to work with small rolls of dough than one big one.
• You can add chopped nuts or peanut butter chips, but the dough will be a little trickier to slice. Mini chocolate chips would also work well.

• Low Fat Chocolate Fudge Cake Cookies
• Cook's Illustrated Fluffy Yellow Cake -- Best Yet!
• Sugar Cookie Mix Black and White Cookies
• Slice and Bake Crunchy Oatmeal Cookies
• Pillsbury Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe