Crumbly Cookies

I have a recipe for peanut butter cookies. They are very yummy but they are a bit crumbly. Does anybody know how to make them hold together just a bit better?

I've looked in McGee. If I understand him arights, I need to add a little water, which will activate the gluten more. Does this make sense? (Note: The only water in the recipe comes from the peanut butter and the butter; none is added.)

Thanks for any guidance.

Another cooking whiz like McGee is Shirley O. Corriher. She says, "If your cookies are too crumbly, sprinkling a little bit of water on the flour before mixing it with other ingredients may solve the problem. Under the same conditions, flour that has less protein will make tender cookies while flour with more protein holds dough together better and can make chewy." She goes on about different types of flours, from cake flour to bread flour in making cookies, which can make a big difference.

Well, two whizzes agree. I guess I'll slate up a tablespoon of water to add next time.

Thanks, Larry.

I wonder if just brief kneading just to bring things together smoothly. I made a refrigerator cheese biscuit (cookie) dough recently and found it required a little more mixing than the recipe suggested to make a cohesive dough. It worked a treat
I’m not much of a baker and have been heavy handed in the pst with disastrous results and now tend to undermix with disastrous results lol. So I was pleased that my instinct to mix a bit more in this instance paid off.
FWIW the dough was mixed in my KA stand mixer and I returned it thre for the extra time.

I don't have an answer for you question but I do remember reading that making chocolate chip cookie dough a day ahead and letting it stand in the fridge makes better cookies. I wonder if the same trick might work for you.

I found the link. It was the New York Times. Here is the link to the recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/101 ... ip-cookies.

So, I was watching an episode of ATK (Season 21 Episode 17 here: https://www.americastestkitchen.com/epi ... -favorites) where they were making peanut butter cookies. During the segment, the cook mentioned that adding water to peanut butter will make the peanut butter cookies dry and crumbly. The way I understand the explanation is that peanut butter is mostly fat with protein suspended in it. When you add water to the peanut butter, it interferes with the suspension. It sounds similar to how chocolate seizes when you add a water-based liquid.

Based on that episode, I would try adding less water or a little more fat to the cookie dough.