Every since I first encountered a bright red nut-grinding machine in a grocery store, I’ve been a fan of fresh ground peanut butter. You can see the shelled peanuts in the hopper (and often almonds in a neighboring machine) and watch them come out the dispenser as creamy nut butter. The result isn’t the ground peanut clump submerged under an inch of oil that you often find when opening jarred natural peanut butter, and it lacks the added butter, sugar, salt, and preservatives of aggressively marketed brands. It’s just nuts.
Peanut butter features in all sorts of baked goods, but as I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, many recipes were originally written for peanut butter spreads already heavy in butter and sugar. It took me several batches of cookies to adapt the recipe I grew up with for fresh ground peanut butter. It was well worth all that sampling and experimenting: these cookies are easy enough to make for everyday snacking yet tasty enough that I can add them to a holiday cookie tray.
