Salty-Sweet Peanut Butter Sandies

Salty-Sweet Peanut Butter Sandies
Soo-Jeong Kang/The New York Times
Total Time
1 hour
Rating
5(3,009)
Comments
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This modern classic is reverse-engineered from a cult cookie at City Bakery in Manhattan. They are saltier, richer and tangier than the usual crisscross rounds, thanks to updated ingredients like sea salt, cultured butter and brown sugar. And like any good “sandy” cookie, they have a soft, crumbly texture that melts away on first bite.

Featured in: A Christmas Quarrel

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Ingredients

Yield:3 to 4 dozen
  • 1cup/228 grams/2 sticks unsalted butter, preferably cultured, softened at room temperature
  • ¾cup/150 grams granulated sugar
  • ¾cup (packed)/170 grams light brown sugar
  • 1heaping teaspoon/6 grams kosher salt
  • 2cups/510 grams unsweetened peanut butter, creamy or chunky
  • 2eggs, at room temperature
  • 2cups/250 grams all-purpose flour
  • Flaky sea salt and coarse sugar for sprinkling (or use kosher salt and granulated sugar)
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (42 servings)

167 calories; 11 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 15 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 9 grams sugars; 4 grams protein; 78 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat oven to 350 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick liners. In a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until smooth and fluffy, at least 3 minutes. Add the peanut butter and eggs, and mix. Add the flour and salt and mix just until well combined, with no white flour showing.

  2. Step 2

    Using a small cookie scoop (about 2 teaspoons capacity), scoop dough onto prepared pans. The tops will be rounded but craggy. The cookies will not spread much or change shape when they bake, so they can be placed quite close together, but leave room for air circulation so they can brown.

  3. Step 3

    In a small bowl, mix 2 tablespoons sugar with 1 tablespoon salt. Sprinkle each cookie lightly with sugar-salt mixture, getting it into the crags and crannies. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until cookies are set and golden-brown. Carefully lift or slide off baking sheets and cool on racks. Store in layers separated by parchment paper, in airtight containers.

Ratings

5 out of 5
3,009 user ratings
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Comments

One of my loves is peanut butter and chocolate so I could not resist adding mini-chocolate chips. Oh, my! This is the cookie you create in secret when no one is home and then hide the plastic container in the freezer under containers of frozen butternut squash soup and bags of frozen peas so they are safe and secure from anyone finding them.

Try using turbinado sugar in this instead of the granulated sugar, and cutting down each sugar by 2T...I did, and it made these even closer to the City Bakery gems I remember. I have made this with Smucker's Natural (which someone left at the house) and with Koeze Cream-Nut (which I order by the case from Zingerman's). There is no wrong peanut butter for this recipe. A keeper.

Made this recipe exactly, including the cultured butter and rounded shape. Frankly, I'm a little tired of the flat cross-hatch thing going on. At 12 minutes, the result was not a crispy cookie, but a firm rich shortbread with a buttery, dense center that melts in your mouth. Next day I shared withs friends. One respected taster bit into her cookie mid conversation. Eyes widened, she said "Oh my!" Indeed. Don't know if my waistline can handle another batch anytime soon.

Loved these cookies. I used almond butter instead, and found it much more effective to roll the cookies in the salt/ sugar mix prior to baking. Love the salty-sweet intensity and melt-in-your-mouth texture.

Too much salt for us if you use the text instructions of one tablespoon salt and two of sugar for sprinkling for the batch. They’re fine with less and had to be tossed with the implied amount. Agree that these are otherwise a great cookie.

I messed up the recipe a bit... ran out of peanut butter so used tahini to bulk out the rest... but also ran out tahini! Also ran out of brown sugar so added extra white sugar.. still they turned out great.

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