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It is Mother's Day and there is nothing my mom loves more than Peanut Butter cookies. She has been known to ferret them away in the freezer, rationing herself to 1/2 of a cookie a day so her limited supply will last longer.

I decided to make my mom her very own batch of cookies to do with as she pleases. She can share them (but doesn't have to), she can freeze them, or she can eat them all on the spot if she wants. But they are all hers to do with exactly as she pleases. Three dozen of them.

The recipe I used was the Peanut Butter recipe from The Best Recipe cookbook-by the editors of Cook's Illustrated. These kids do their homework, that's for sure. I'm all for anyone who is going to test drive dozens of different recipes, and tell me which ones get their vote as tops. In regards to their cookie, they claim this recipe makes a cookie that is slightly chewy in the middle, crisp around the edges, buttery and sweet with a strong hint of peanuts. Sounds good to me. I hate a greasy peanut butter cookie.

I knew before I put these in the oven this cookie was going to be good. If your batter tastes good, you at least have a shot at a great cookie. I know it isn't smart to eat food with raw eggs in it, but when it comes to cookie dough, I really can't help myself. Short term satisfaction or the potential for salmonella poisoning eight hours down the line -I eat the dough every time. This dough is amazing-- think sugary peanut butter goodness.

Creating the dough was straight forward. Whisk the dry ingredients. Cream the butter and sugars. Add the rest of the ingredients one at a time.

I have recently had peanut butter cookies with full peanuts in them. Im not into that. I like my peanut butter cookies traditional circa childhood 1978, with minimal visible nuts. This recipe says to grind a cup of peanuts to the consistency of breadcrumbs or 14 pulses in the Mini-Cuisinart. Next time I make these I might do more pulses....20+. There were still some pretty bug peanut chunks.

I used a small ice cream scoop to get uniform cookies onto the baking sheets, and meticulously made the criss-cross patter on three sheets full.

You have to be careful with peanut butter cookies, it is tough to tell exactly when they are done.

So how were they? I loved them, but more importantly they got the thumbs up from my mom. She meticulously packaged them up, took them away, and hid them (no wonder they get ants). These very well may be the best peanut butter cookies ever, but not because there is anything special and surprising to them. The are close to perfection because they are exactly how you might imagine the perfect peanut butter cookie would be.

To feature an actual recipe taken from a cookbook, it is best to request permission from the publisher or author. In the early days on 101 Cookbooks, I would tell people where to find the recipe, but not feature the recipe itself. Eventually I began to request permission to run the actual recipes, but this wasn't one of them. The majority of entries on 101 Cookbooks will have the recipes attached, this just happens to be one of the ones that doesn't. My apologies!

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