Peanut Butter Cookies

There's nothing like a chewy peanut butter cookie, preferably accompanied by a tall ice cold glass of milk. Of course, there are plenty of peanut butter cookie recipes out there that produce various styles of this famous cookie. They can be chewy or crunchy, small or large, may be made with oatmeal or chocolate chips, or may even come in the style of a sandwich cookie, such as Peanut Butter Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies. This recipe produces a chewy, sugar coated cookie made with whole wheat pastry flour and brown sugar, along with the traditional criss-cross design on the tops of the cookies created with the tines of a fork. The wheat flour and brown sugar give these cookies more substance and a richer flavor than those made with white flour and white granulated sugar. You can use all purpose flour if you don't have any whole wheat flour handy, but for cookie connoisseurs, the whole wheat flour adds a subtle but noticeable improvement that's well worth it. These chewy gems are topped with raw coarse sugar which gives them a nice sparkle and crispy crunch. (Again, if you only have regular white granulated sugar, that will work as well, but the best flavor and texture comes from coarse raw sugar.)