Nancy Silverton's Best Peanut Butter Cookies

For the Toasted Peanuts 375 grams (3 cups) skin-on Spanish peanuts 3 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or other neutral-flavored oil, such as safflower) 1½ tablespoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt For the Dough 2 extra-large eggs 2 tablespoons pure vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract 140 grams (1 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour 130 grams (1 cup) sorghum flour 170 grams (1½ sticks) cold unsalted butter, cubed 270 grams (1 cup) creamy peanut butter 180 grams (about ¾ cup plus 2½ tablespoons) granulated sugar 110 grams (½ cup plus 2 teaspoons packed) dark brown sugar 1½ teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt ½ teaspoon baking powder For Finishing 100 grams (½ cup) granulated sugar 270 grams (1 cup) peanut butter (preferably creamy) 2 tablespoons flaky sea salt method To toast the peanuts, adjust an oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 350°F. Put the peanuts on a large baking sheet, drizzle them with the oil, sprinkle with the salt, and toss to coat them. Spread the peanuts out in an even layer and toast them on the center rack of the oven until they are dark mahogany in color, 18 to 20 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally and rotating the pan front to back halfway through the toasting time so the peanuts brown evenly. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and set aside to cool the nuts to room temperature. (If you think they are on the verge of being overtoasted, transfer them to a plate so they don’t continue to cook from the residual heat of the pan.) Turn off the oven. To make the dough, whisk the eggs and vanilla together in a small bowl. Combine the all-purpose and sorghum flours in a medium bowl and stir with a whisk to combine. Put the butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle and beat at medium speed until the butter is softened but still cold, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and paddle with a rubber spatula whenever butter is accumulating. Add the peanut butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar and beat on medium speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the baking soda, salt, and baking powder and beat on medium speed for about 15 seconds to incorporate the additions. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl and paddle. With the mixer on medium speed, gradually add the egg/vanilla mixture, mixing until the egg is completely incorporated. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl. Add the combined flours and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds until no flour is visible. Stop the mixer, remove the paddle and bowl, and clean them with the spatula, scraping from the bottom up to release any ingredients from the bottom of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the dough is chilled and firm, at least 30 minutes. Adjust the oven racks so one is in the top third and the other is in the bottom third of the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. To finish the cookies, pour the granulated sugar into a small bowl. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Remove the plastic wrap and reserve it. Scoop the dough into 21-gram (1½-tablespoon) portions and roll each portion into a ball. Roll the balls in the sugar to coat them and place 12 cookies on each of the prepared baking sheets, leaving at least 1½ inches between them. (Re-cover the remaining dough and return it to the refrigerator.) Press your thumb in the center of each ball of dough and turn your thumb to expand the divot slightly and make it round. Spoon 1 teaspoon of peanut butter into each divot and sprinkle a generous pinch of flaky sea salt on top. Place one baking sheet on each oven rack and bake the cookies for 4 minutes. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and pile a mound of peanuts (about 20) in the center of each cookie. Return the baking sheets to the oven, switching racks and rotating the sheets front to back, and bake the cookies until they are golden brown, have puffed up, and are just beginning to collapse, 4 to 5 minutes. (You want the cookies to be slightly underdone, so they will feel soft to the touch. They will firm up when they cool.) Remove the cookies from the oven. If any of the cookies have become misshapen during baking, gently cup your hands around the edges to reshape them. If the cookies spread so much that there are gaps between the peanuts, add a few of the remaining peanuts to each cookie so you have a pretty, abundant nut cluster on each cookie. Allow the cookies to cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet. Bake the remaining cookies in the same way.

Wydaho Roasters, Driggs, Idaho

This is a remarkable coffee shop where both the coffee roasting and the bakery are on site. The coffee is exceptional, there is no getting around that, and we now buy all our coffee from them. We usually try to pick it up when we are in town and then vaccuum pack it for future use, but we occasionally have to resort to mailorder. The game changer in my mind, though, is the bakery. The laminated dough made with Eurpoean butter is astoundingly good in all forms. My favorite is the cardomon buns, followed by the everything buns, but each and every use of it results in something special and so much better than what you could expect to produce in your home kitchen, and why bother because they do it so well. Wxtra special fun is that the bakery is open to the coffee shop so if you happen to be there in the afternoon you can catch the prep for the baking the following day. Finally, of note, they are open every single day, Monday through Sunday, 6AM-6PM. When we roll into town late in the day they still have their doors open, unlike many a coffee shop in the Teton Valley.

Baked on Maui, Haiku-Pauwela, Maui, Hawaii

In their own words, this is a bakery that was created by a local family hoping to provide quality baked goods, made from scratch, that reflected local ingredients as well as making real, fresh food. It is located up a small country road (truly, there is not much that would be classified as a highway on Maui, so this part does not stand out), in a small town in a building that once housed the Libby Pineapple Cannery. One regret I had at the end of my trip is that I did not go to the abandoned sugar factory that we passed almost every day on our way to get somewhere else, and I did not dig much into the legacy of corporations, farming, and Hawaii, but it was nice to see this warehouse repurposed. That is the history, but it is the coffee and the food that would bring us back. We stopped en route to the Road to Hana, and got some quite acceptable sandwiches to tide us over, but it was the breakfast pastries that really knowcked our socks off—so delicious and flakey and flavorful!

Quick Cinnamon Rolls

These cinnamon rolls are surprisingly good considering there is no yeast, and you can literally go from waking up to eating them in less than an hour, and you ware likely to have everything on hand if you bake in general. Defintiely the best conamon roll per minute of effort! ½ cup/113 grams unsalted butter, very soft, plus more for greasing the pan ½ packed cup/110 grams light brown sugar 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon ¾ cup/90 grams chopped pecans, toasted (see Tip) FOR THE ROLLS: 2 cups/256 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon fine salt ¼ teaspoon baking soda ¼ cup/54 grams canola oil ¾ cup/180 grams buttermilk FOR THE GLAZE: 4 ounces/113 grams cream cheese, very soft 1/2-3/4 cup/51-76 grams confectioners’ sugar 1 teaspoon whole milk or heavy cream ½ teaspoon vanilla extract Heat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan. Make the filling: In a medium bowl, using a flexible spatula or wooden spoon, mix butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in the pecans. Set aside. Make the rolls: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Add the oil and, using a flexible spatula or wooden spoon, mix until incorporated. (It might be a little lumpy. That’s OK!) Stir in the buttermilk until just blended. Gather the dough into a ball and knead on a lightly floured surface until smooth, about 1 minute. Roll out the dough into a 15-by-8-inch rectangle. Gently spread the filling evenly over the dough, leaving a ¼-inch border all around. Starting from one of the long sides, roll up the dough into a tight cylinder. Rotate the roll so that the seam is against the work surface. Using a serrated knife, cut the roll crosswise into eight equal slices. Transfer the rolls to the prepared pan, spacing them evenly. (At this point, you can wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for a day or 2, or freeze for up to 3 months. Allow to come to room temperature before proceeding.) Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden. While the rolls bake, make the glaze: In a medium bowl, using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, beat the cream cheese until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the confectioners’ sugar and beat well. Add the milk and vanilla, and beat until smooth and creamy. Set aside. Remove the rolls from the oven and allow to cool for 3 to 4 minutes before coating with the glaze. Serve warm.

Alison Roman's Lucky Biscuits

My husband has been on a quest to make biscuits that I love, and with this recipe, he hit the jackpot.  Everyone around the table agreed, these are keepers!

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 and 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 sticks butter cut into 1 inch pieces and 3 tbsp for topping
• 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
• 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• flaky sea salt
• 1/4 tsp Old Bay seasoning
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder

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Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper
2. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and baking soda in a large mixing bowl
3. Use your hands to mash the butter into the flour mixture
4. Add buttermilk and cheese and continue to mix everything together with your hands until everything comes together into a little kneaded dough ball
5. Lightly flour a work surface and knead the dough another couple of times
6. Pat the dough into a rectangle about 12 by 6 inches wide and cut it into 8 equal biscuits
7. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and brush with additional buttermilk and then sprinkle with flaky sea salt
8. Bake for 25 minutes, flipping the biscuits halfway through
9. With a few minutes left on the oven timer, melt 3 tbsp of butter and mix it with 1/4 tsp of Old Bay seasoning and 1/2 tsp garlic powder
10. Remove the biscuits from the oven, brushing each with the Old Bay garlic butter and let cool slightly before enjoying!